Orphan No More
by Cainwen the Warrior
Summary: John and Co. rescue CulloughThe Captive Wraith's infant daughter from stasis, where she has been for 18000 years. But can they prove she's an asset and not a liability before the I.O.A steps in? Please R&R Sequel to 'You Do Not Know&Shadow of Death
1. A Rescue Proposed

**A Rescue Proposed**

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Cainwen: Okay, please don't yell at me Kyrie, but it demanded to be started! Since I get a better attraction when I can put "John Sheppard" under the main characters, I'm going to start posting this and hope that people will get hooked on this and go read my two prequel tales. So, **please review**! By the way, an anonymous reviewer says that Beckett is two years younger than Sheppard. I could find this no where in canon, so I'll stick by my assessment that Sheppard is younger. If someone can prove otherwise within canon, I will be happy to adjust.

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"Elizabeth! We got a rescue mission," Sheppard announced as he bounced into Dr. Weir's office with Teyla and Drs. Mckay, Heitlmeyer and Beckett in tow. 

Dr. Weir looked up from her computer screen. "A rescue? What team?"

"Not a team. A person. One person. A baby," the colonel prefaced his shocker as he leaned on the civilian leader's desk. "Mairghread."

"Mairghread?"

"Cullough's only living daughter."

"A wraith? You want to _rescue_ a _wraith_?" Elizabeth repeated slowly and incredudously, leaning back in her chair in the attitude she adopted generally before vetoing one of McKay's wackier and riskier experiments.

"Not just any wraith," John tried to explain. "A _baby_."

"A baby with the knowledge of a 18000 year old wraith and orders to obey us," McKay interjected.

Dr. Weir simply stared at them, clearly waiting for them to put forth more arguments before she shot down their proposal. It generally took less time this way.

"Look, Elizabeth," Sheppard explained, playing along and using his best cajoling, reasonable voice. "Our friendly wraith has given the opportunity of a lifetime. He's trusting us with the most precious thing he has—his daughter, his only surviving child," Sheppard added for dramatic effect and hopefully to evoke pity on the part of Elizabeth, "whom he hid in a stasis pod to save her life in the hopes that one day, it would be safe enough for her. She knows _everything_ he knows and more. She's a three-month-old infant right now. We'd get to raise her, get her to trust us implicitly without any manipulation. Think of all the advantages she could give us."

"Yes yes yes," McKay interrupted impatiently. "Look, Elizabeth, even if this kid knows a tenth of what Sheppard says she knows, she could vastly increase our understanding of wraith technology."

"Dr. Beckett, what's your interest in this?" Dr. Weir asked warily.

"Look, the oppurtoonity to obsarve the development of a female wraith is too big to give oop, Elizabeth. Ah mean, it could be very importan' to the creation of a compleetely sucessful retrovirus," Carson said quickly before Kate jumped in.

"Elizabeth, we all feel we've made some pretty big mistakes in our dealings with individual wraith in the past. If we were to raise Mairghread, it would give us a fresh start, a chance to maybe correct our mistakes and understand how better to deal with them in the future. A willing wraith subject would be far more helpful than an unwilling one," she offered. "It might also boost the moral of the persons who feel some guilt over Michael and Ellia."

"Teyla?"

Teyla gazed calmly at the doctor, with her customary cool demeanor. "We have seen with Ellia that a wraith can be raised to be... compantionate under the right circumstances," she began, "And I believe as well that this perhaps could be used to...atone...for what we did to Michael. We were unsuccessful in bringing him into our...family. Perhaps, since her father has already prepared the way, we will be successful this time."

"Come on, Elizabeth," John wheedled. "If it doesn't work, we put her back in stasis. If it does, we got a _huge_ advantage."

Weir nodded slowly. "I have to think about it. For instance, you said she would be a three months old? How fast is she going to grow up?"

"About a year every two weeks for the first couple months, then accelerating until she's physically about a hundred," John explained causally.

"Okay…but who's going to take care of her until she can take care of herself? What about wraith baby formula? And once she's older, won't she need to feed?"

"I have agreed to help Dr. Beckett care for her; he and Col. Sheppard have been able to simulate wraith breast milk according to the knowledge that was given the Colonel. And he believes that Cullough has provided a means to eliminate her need for human lives," Teyla stated quietly.

"John?"

"I think he left a kinda retrovirus that would keep the genes that allow them as kids to live off normal food 'on'."

"Where are you going to do this? Most of the expedition wouldn't be too keen on having a wraith of any age or size near them," Elizabeth challenged.

"Well, they just finished cleaning the um, the uh, uh, South-west pier didn't they?" Rodney asked impatiently. "Set it up there. They found some uh, nice apartments, I'm sure they would, uh, fit the bill, as it were."

Elizabeth looked guardedly convinced. "The I.O.A. won't like this," she told them.

"They're a bunch of bureaucrats a bazillion light years from here," John scoffed. "By the time they find out, it'll either be a huge success or a failure we've already corrected."

Weir nodded with her you-have-convinced-me-on-a-provisional-basis look and stood up. "Okay. You have a go. But before you go bringing any wraith child out of stasis, I want you to set up those apartments. Air-tight security. No bugs, no glitches. Age appropriate furniture, whatever equipment you need, et cetera, there, ready and waiting. Clothes, food, everything. Got it?" She asked in her warning tone.

John Sheppard flashed her his patented smile, "Got it. Thanks Elizabeth!" he called back as he bounced out of her office, the others in tow.

"Come on guys!" he said enthusiastically as they headed for the nearest transporter. "We got a nursery to decorate!"

TBC

PS-I apologize in advance. I'm better at wraith thoughts.


	2. Nurseries 101

**Nurseries 101 **

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Cainwen: Aren't I nice to you? Now, please be nice to me a leave me a review! Or I send my wraith muses after you! I'm writing at light-speed and they are happy with me!

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"No no no no! Connector 'BW' goes into slot 397. Sheesh! How do you guys get your guns apart and back together for cleaning?!" Rodney ranted as he and Sheppard tried to put a crib together. Fortunately, baby gear was one of the things that had come through the Gate the first time, since it had then been assumed that it was a one-way trip and, human nature being what it was, necessary family things had to be brought. 

"I'm telling ya Rodney, letters go to letters, numbers to numbers," John countered as he tried to fit two seemingly unrelated bars together according to some blueprint he had in his head.

"I believe you are both incorrect," announced Teyla as she pored over the instruction manual that she had discovered discarded upon the floor. "The directions imply that section D, end z is bolted to bar q, portion k, and is then inserted into slot 397."

"What?! Let me see that," demanded the irate doctor, who snatched the booklet from the Athosian's hands and angrily read it for a moment. "She's right."

"How do they expect normal people to put this together?" Sheppard wondered as he gazed around at the myriad of unrecognizable bits of metal, plastic and wood that claimed, when properly assembled, to be a crib that converted to a toddler-bed when necessary. "We've got a physics genius, a military commander and an alien and we can't do it."

Teyla graced him with her long-suffering, diplomatic smile. "I think that it requires a degree of patience," she told him as she bent down and began fitting pieces together according to the diagrams.

"Humph," Rodney snorted. "You clearly have had no experience with some-assembly-required merchandise. Otherwise, you would realize that what it really needs is—"

"A Teyla," interjected John. Rodney turned around from he had been lecturing to see a nearly assembled, dark-stained oak crib standing behind him. John slid the last piece into place so all that was missing was the mattress, crib pads and sheets.

Rodney stood open-mouthed as Teyla and John quietly proceeded to the next two items yet to be assembled, the glider and the changing table.

"How's it coming, you guys?" asked Dr. Weir as she walked into the room bearing an armful of onesies and receiving blankets. Despite efforts to keep the future rescue a secret, word had inevitably leaked out, and although some parties were concerned and unhappy at the prospect of yet another wraith coming into their midst, there were those for whom a baby was a baby, no matter what it might grow into. These parties demanded constant updates.

"Well, Teyla's showing us all how to put these things together, and, um, what's his name, the Canadian security guy, he declared this place capable of sustaining a vacuum indefinitely in every conceivable and inconceivable circumstance," Sheppard summarized as he thudded the crib mattress into place. "I see you've got some more baby clothes there."

"Mmm. No one's sure how exactly they all got here, but they're all will to donate it to the cause," she said. "Do we have a dresser yet?"

"Uh, yeah, over there," McKay replied absent-mindedly as he observed Teyla effortlessly assemble the thousands of nonsensical pieces into an elegant glider to match the crib. "English woman with the smelly paper."

"Hello Mary," Dr. Weir greeted the British linguist. "What are you doing?"

"Hello Elizabeth," she replied as she slid in a sheet of drawer lining paper. "Just lining these drawers. Can't put clean clothes in unlined draws, especially new ones."

"Oh. Um, is there somewhere for these yet?"

"Certainly. Try this drawer," Mary pulled open the second drawer from the top, which she had already lined with lavender-scented paper.

"Thanks," Weir said as she began arranging the clothes in the drawer. "And to think I was worried about the reaction of the expedition."

"Where should I put this?"

Dead silence fell on the room as everyone spun around to see Ronon standing in the doorway, holding another basket of crib sheets.

TBC

Dum dum dum


	3. The Wrath of Ronon

** The Wrath of Ronon**

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Cainwen: who said anything about Ronon accepting the situation? He didn't even _know_ about it yet. **Enjoy and Please Review! Or Else!**

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Dr. Weir was the first to recover from the shock.

"Ronon...what are you doing here?" she asked casually as she dropped the onesies into the drawer and walked over to him. It had been agreed that no one would tell Ronon about this until the last minute. The knowledge of a wraith on the way to stay would make the former runner broody, and a broody Ronon was a thing generally acknowledged as very very bad. For one thing, in such a mood, he had a bad habit of breaking the marines he was supposed to be training. A system wide email had been sent out to this effect.

Ronon held up the laundry basket. "I was looking for you guys when I ran into the little guy with the funny hair. He shoved this at me and told me to follow the trail of annoyance Rodney always leaves behind."

He looked around at the crib, partially completed glider, dresser and baby paraphernalia. "What's going on?"

Elizabeth clasped her hands, pursed her lips and stood in her best I'm-going-to-tell-you-something-you're-really-not-going-to-like stance. "We're going to bring Cullough's daughter out of stasis and bring her here in the hopes that by raising her ourselves she will become like Ellia and be willing to help us with the knowledge she possesses," she explained coolly but quickly.

Ronon stared at her. "A wraith?! You're bringing _another_ wraith here?!" he shouted.

"Yes, Ronon," she replied, clearly trying to remain calm. "She's an infant right now, and poses us no threat.

"She's a _wraith!_" Ronon shouted as he dropped the basket. His eyes blazed as he looked around the room before storming out.

"Well," said Sheppard, breaking the uncomfortable silence. "That went well."

**ooooooooooooo **

Later that day, Teyla found Ronon angrily destroying another punching bag in one of the lesser-used gyms.

"Ronon?" she asked softly as she came in. "Are you alright?"

Ronon paused in his annihilation of the poor punching bag.

"How'd you find me?" he growled before resuming his doctor-recommended-anger-management.

"It was not difficult," the Athosian explained sweetly. "I knew you would be were everyone else was not. I simply looked for the most deserted area surrounded by the most terrified looking marines."

The Satedan snorted and missed the punching bag, which in its previously-acquired momentum, swung back and thwacked him soundly, knocking the air out of him.

"Oof!" he said, doubling over. Taking advantage of the situation, and knowing that she would never get Ronon to stay still enough to listen otherwise, Teyla knocked the large man over and sat on him, strategically sitting on his chest to delay him catching his breath.

"We did not wish to deceive you, Ronon," she explained calmly, in her best diplomatic-cum-mother-cum-school-teacher voice. "We merely thought it best not to inform you of the mission until it was nearing time to leave. Colonel Sheppard was worried you would be very angry and inadvertently injure someone."

"So you didn't trust me with this," Ronon gasped, his ire clearly rising with the color in his tan face.

"No," she reply slowly. "We are merely…sensitive to your…feelings regarding the wraith. We had hoped to break the news more…gently. We had hoped to avoid a situation like this."

"You're bringing another wraith here! How'd you think I'd react?!" Ronon expostulated as he tried in vain to shift the petite woman from his chest. The lack of air was growing disturbing.

"You are not listening," Teyla admonished him and bounced slightly to forestall his escape efforts. "We are not trying to do to her what we did to Michael. We are not trying to turn her into something she is not."

"THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS A GOOD WRAITH!"

"What about Cullough?" Teyla asked gently.

This gave Ronon pause. It was difficult for him to think about that particular wraith, for it conjured two separate and paradoxical emotions within him, and he preferred to deal with one at a time, and basic emotions at that. On the one hand, the wraith had fed on John 4 times. That should equal bad wraith, which should equal hate. On the other hand, he had given John _back_ the life he had taken, and John seemed to like the wraith, which should equal good wraith (which was supposed to be impossible under the laws Ronon considered to be running the universe) which should equal at the minimum tolerance for the wraith and his offspring (under the other laws Ronon considered to be running the universe).

"Hmph," he replied. "Can you get off?"

"Will you sit still and listen?"

"Yes," he rumbled, and Teyla leapt lightly off to sit next to him. Ronon sat up rubbing his chest.

"No experiments? No trying to turn her into a human?" he asked suspiciously.

"No," Teyla shook her head. "If we cannot win her over as a wraith, we will return her to stasis."

Ronon thought. "No leaving her alone?"

"No. She will be with a minimum of two persons at all times."

"Why exactly are we doing this again?"

"She possesses vast knowledge of wraith technology, among other things," Teyla smiled. She was getting through. Ronon thought for another moment, and smiled wryly.

"She's a baby, right?" he asked, and Teyla nodded. "I'm not gonna have to change her, am I?"

Teyla laughed. "No, Ronon."

"And first sign she's like any other wraith, back she goes?"

"Yes."

"Hmph. Still think it's a bad idea but," he shrugged. "I think most of what we do is a bad idea."

"So you will not injure any marines?" Teyla prodded him.

"Nope," he smiled his feral grin. "Not this time."

"Good," she reply, rising. "Then perhaps you could help myself and Colonel Sheppard finish the nursery furniture? I believe the next piece requires the use of a mallet."

TBC


	4. Final Checklist

**Final Checklist**

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Cainwen: Pretty please? Leave a Review?

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"Well," said Dr. Weir, "It looks like everything is ready for Atlantis's newest member."

The nursery was now complete. The furniture had been successfully built, safety-checked, cleaned and appropriately padded. The crib had been furnished with sage-green bumpers, white sheet and cotton blanket. The glider had been assembled, and outfitted with tied-on cushions to match the crib bumpers. The changing table had been stocked with cloth diapers (it would have been impossible to bring the necessary number of disposables through the Gate), and changing pads. Medical equipment that Beckett and his team might need was unobtrusively lined up against one wall.

Several enterprising scientists had made contributions in their spare time. One scientist, dismayed at the rubber-pants normally used with the cloth diapers, created silicone diaper covers, which, as he pointed out, had the advantage of being washable in boiling water, being inert under most circumstances and common chemicals, flexible, waterproof, and disinclined to crack. Another scientist provided a macgyvered wash-cloth warmer, pointing out that since no disposible wipes had been brought along, it would be much easier to keep damp, warm washcloths in the modified autoclave than running to the sink every time.

Enthused marines and scientists alike had displayed their bargaining skills admirably in spontaneously procuring wall hangings, pictures, area rugs and baby toys from various planets. It was a nursery to be proud of.

"Not quite," said Sheppard as he waltzed in, colorful binders in his arms. "Kate said to distribute these to everyone who may come in contact with Mairghread. Oh, the marines have worked out a schedule so no one who doesn't want to be near her has to be. Luckily," he grinned, "A lot of them want to be."

"What are these?" Elizabeth asked as she took a neon orange binder off the top of the stack. The cover read "Babies 101: The Atlantis Expedition Guide to babies of all humanoid species".

"The collective docs thought it best to give everyone a crash course/guide book, since they figured most of the 'leathernecks and eggheads have had minimal contact with and experience caring for infants'," John offered as he passed out his informational goodies.

Dr. Weir thumbed through her copy. "A Step by Step Guide to Diapering. What to feed him/her, cross-referenced by age, number of teeth and species. Seven Reasons babies cry. What to do when he/she won't sleep. Why you must NOT SHAKE THE BABY," she read aloud. "Will we receive an updated copy in a few weeks when she's a toddler?"

John shrugged. "All I know is, once I've handed these things out, the docs said we were ready to go."

Elizabeth raised her disbelieving eyebrow. "Security?"

"Tighter than a drum."

"Food?" she asked, since she could see for herself the impeccable state of the nursery.

"Beckett's got four liters ready and waiting, and a month's supply of powder ready to mix."

Weir nodded slightly, as though weighing and judging the information she had been give. She smiled, "Okay, you have a go."

"Yes!" shouted Sheppard and tapped his earpiece. "Rodney? Teyla? Carson? Ronon? Pack your bags. We're good to go."

TBC

Next time: First Contact


	5. First Contact

**First Contact**

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Cainwen: Sorry! Life got in the way. Thanks to those who signed in and reviewed!

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The planet to which they had just come was remarkable for several reasons. For one, it showed no sign of recent wraith activity, despite being in a rather wraith-infested area of the galaxy. For another, it was difficult to say what level of technology the native human population had achieved: their homes were simply constructed from natural and little modified materials like wood, stone and clay, but several had been seen carrying things that appeared similar to a tablet PC. Another remarkable thing about this planet was the sheer size of the trees. Nearly a hundred feet tall and thirty feet in diameter with a vast and spreading root system, branches that grew up, down and sideways, and sometimes all at once. 

Otherwise, it could be said to be a wholly unremarkable planet, very earth-like, with a moderate climate, green plants, et cetera.

It was necessary to land the puddle jumper nearly a quarter of a mile outside of the nearest village. While Cullough had told John the gate address to the planet, he had not mentioned exactly where his daughter was hidden or how they would find her. John only had a sneaking suspicion that they were supposed to talk to the people in the village.

And so, here they were. John, Ronon, Teyla, Rodney, and Carson, along with a handful of marines and another handful of medical personnel. Fortunately, the jumper was large enough for all of them and a stretcher and the bags of medical equipment Beckett had insisted upon bringing. Now, they and all the paraphernalia were hiking along to the village. The paraphernalia was not hiking of course—it was getting a ride on the backs of everyone or on the stretcher. Luckily, the path was paved with smooth, slate-like stones that were closely laid and in good repair, which was a pleasant change from the rough dirt trails, or no trails at all that the team was used to treading.

When they came to the village, which had already been scouted by a UAV, they were in for quite a shock. Not that the village was shocking or the people terribly unusual. It could best be described as "quaint". The buildings tended to be the size of the average bungalow, though on closer inspection they all seemed to be connected through passages, either above or below ground. Despite their unpolished appearance from the air, it was clear from the ground that they were actually of beautifully intricate construction. Many of them seemed to use live trees in addition to the hand-hewn wood, stone and clay in their construction.

What was shocking was the reaction of the townspeople to their arrival.

"Thanks be to the Spirits and the One that they serve, you are here at last!" cried a man as they entered, stilling lugging the lazy equipment. Honestly, you would have thought that among all their inventions, the Lanteans could have invented something useful and nondestructive, like something to transport equipment over long distances and a variety of terrain.

"Uh, you've been expecting us?" asked Sheppard, confusedly taking off his sunglasses as the man approached them. He seemed to be the village leader, since the others in the square were soon crowding around him.

"Oh yes," he replied. "For 18,000 years...," he paused as he saw the baffled looks on the visitors' faces. "Pardon my manners," he apologized. "My name is Iain. Would you like to come this way?"

Sheppard motioned for the marines and medics to stay with the equipment while they went "this way".

Iain led them to what seemed to be a large meeting hall dug under the roots of an enormous tree. Inside, the floor had been laid in stone in an intricate pattern, and light streamed in through large, clear crystalline panels set amidst the tree roots.

"You seemed confused when I implied we were expecting you," he said calmly. Despite the bizarreness of the situation, he seemed completely unperturbed.

"Um yeah, about that," Sheppard said, "You wanna explain that a bit?"

Iain smiled reassuringly, which under the situation, the team found unsettling. "Of course. I assume you have come for the star child?"

"Star child?" Teyla repeated, raising her eyebrow.

"Yes," Iain replied, as though conversations such as these took place on a regular basis. "The child who has a star upon her temple," he indicated on himself.

"Mairghread has a star tattooed on her temple—Seàrlaid's sign," Sheppard whispered to the others. To Iain, he said, "Yeah, we've come for her, but, uh, how'd you know?"

Iain smiled again and beckoned them down a hallway off the main room. The walls were painted in elaborate murals with text running along the top.

"Nearly 18,000 years ago, a Mercy-Bringer came to our ancestors," Iain narrated the depictions of the events. "He brought with him the star child, a mere infant. He told us that the slaves of darkness were threatening their lives. He must fight against them, but his daughter could not," he indicated a picture of a wraith, slightly blurred as though in a tiny fog bank, holding a blanket wrapped bundle, speaking to villagers somewhat more primitive than the present ones. "He asked our people to guard over the place he would hide her until he or his people could return for her," he pointed to the picture of an enormous tree by a stream. "In exchange for our watchfulness and our continued obedience to the laws of the Spirits, he promised protection for our people from the slaves of darkness," he gestured to a picture of the night sky, were several bright, silvery objects hung in the sky, too large to be stars, too oddly shaped for a moon.

"Wait wait wait wait wait," interrupted Rodney. "You're saying you haven't been attacked by the wraith in 18000 years?"

"We have never felt their wrath," he replied. "We have been good and faithful guardians. We have kept the way of the Spirits, and tended the tree where the child sleeps."

"Your society hasn't changed in 18000 years?" asked Sheppard incredulously.

"We have grown; we have learned how to use things better," he pulled one of the tablet-like devices from a bag over his shoulder and handed it to Rodney. "But we have remained obedient. We have had no cause to wish for change. We are at peace with our neighbors, and we are safe from the 'Wraith'.

"This is incredible," Rodney muttered as he examined the tablet.

"We can show you how we make them if you like," Iain told him.

John ignored Rodney's outburst. "You'll excuse my disbelief, but that sounds too good to be true."

Iain stared at him calmly. "We have had problems along the way to be sure," he said. "But since we have been protected as we convenanted, it always seemed wisest to remain true to our ancestor's commitment."

"Hmm. But how did you know _we_ were the ones you've been waiting for?" John probed further and changed the subject.

"Several weeks ago, we received a message from the Mercy-Bringer. His spirit appeared to us; he described you all and told us that you would come for his daughter, since he could no longer do so. And now," Iain said. "Would you like to go to the hiding place?"

TBC

Next: "Rise up, My Love, My Fair One, and Come Away"


	6. Arise, My Love, My Fair One

**Arise, My Love, My Fair One, And Come Away **

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Rise up, my love, my fair one, and come away. For lo, the winter is past, the rain is over and gone. The flowers appear on the earth; the time of the singing of birds is come, and the voice of the turtledove is heard in our land. The fig tree putteth forth her green figs, and the vines with the tender grape give a good smell. Arise, my love, my fair one, and come away.' Song of Songs 2:10-13

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Cainwen: **Pretty please review! **I try to be nice and update quickly!

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After collecting the marines, medical personnel and equipment, which they were helped in carrying by several of the villagers, Iain led them through the woods to a place not ten minutes from the town center, where an enormous and clearly ancient tree stood tall, proud and some how alive.

"How can there be a 18,000 year old tree?" Sheppard wondered.

"Well, the oldest tree on earth was, um, about 10,000 years and there are certain kinds of plants that can go through endless cycles of regeneration," one of the nurses behind him popped up. When everyone turned to stare at her, she shrugged sheepishly. "I study plants in my spare time."

Ignoring the arborist nurse, Rodney was busily trying to figure out how to get into the tree.

"Don't suppose he told you how to get in?" he asked Iain, who shrugged.

"He said you would know."

"Great," muttered McKay sarcastically. Teyla ignored him and stepped down into a depression in the earth between two huge roots.

"Colonel Sheppard," she called. "I believe this is the opening."

Sheppard and Mckay followed her to see what seemed to be a cleverly concealed door, which proved itself as such by calmly swinging open as Sheppard and Teyla stood in front of it.

"You see?" asked Iain. "I knew you knew how," he motioned to the other villagers. "We will leave you now," he told the Atlanteans. "If you require anything else, please let us know."

The team descended in to a large chamber concealed beneath the tree. As they came fully in, the room began to glow with a soft, gentle light. The chamber was perhaps thirty feet in diameter, with a stone floor similar to the one in the meeting hall, but the walls were lined with wraith-esque consoles. Saying they were wraith-consoles would have been accurate, but not correct. Wraithian consoles they had encountered before were all, as Sheppard put it, creepy. These had almost a beauty to them. And in the center of the room was the stasis pod.

It was not like a Lantean stasis pod, which always somehow gave the impression of being an upright coffin. Nor was it like the present-day wraith pods, which always made John think of the room where Blue Beard kept his wives. Rather, it was something like a cross between a blue peapod and a cradle.

"Look at all this stuff!" cried Rodney excitedly, diving for the nearest console. Beckett reached out and pulled Rodney back by the collar of his jacket. "Hey hey, let go!" demanded the frustrated scientist.

Beckett held him by the collar like he would a naughty little boy. "No," he told Rodney firmly. "Ye may not touch those things. Wee're heare faer the babe."

"But—"

"No," the Scotsman repeated firmly. "Later."

"We can come back, Rodney," Sheppard told him before he and Beckett could start arguing. "For now, lets just get Mairghread and leave," he said before muttering, "Before you break something."

Rodney opened his mouth to protest, but Beckett shook him firmly before releasing him, and so closed his mouth.

"Doc, you set up your stuff," Sheppard ordered. "Let us know when you're ready."

"Aye," Carson agreed and began instructing his staff what and where to set up.

Several minutes later, the Scotsman declared everything ready. Blankets had been curled into a nest on the upper portion of the stretcher, and various tools had been laid out below, as well as diapers and cloths of various sizes, since the size of a three-month-old wraith was an unknown. While Cullough may have tried to communicate Mairghread's size to John, as far as the Colonel was concerned, there was preemie, baby, toddler sizes and no degrees within those categories. However, thanks to _Babies 101: The Atlantis Expedition Guide to babies of all humanoid species_, John was able to recognize diapers, onsies, footsies (which the _Guide_ defined as onesie with feet and long sleeves) and hats, which he had learned were vital to keeping a baby warm.

"Alright," announced Beckett, who had donned a protective gown and gloves that covered his arms to the elbow. He came and stood by the stasis pod. "Ah'm ready."

Sheppard stood for a moment, his hand poised above the controls, Beckett and his team ready to pounce and leap into action, much as someone might before opening a grave or cutting a cake with a crowd of hungry party goers waiting.

"For God's sake, Sheppard, stop building dramatic tension and open the damn thing!" cried Rodney irritably.

Sheppard sneered at the physicist before deftly moving his fingers over the console in the correct pattern.

With a soft sucking sound, like lips parting, the stasis pod split open and pulled apart its top, revealing the interior, full of some liquid and suspended within—a tiny infant.

Carson quickly reached in and carefully lifted the baby out. Holding her in one arm, he used a suction bulb to clear her airways as she let loose a high, loud, indignant shriek.

For several minutes Mairghread was hidden from view (but not hearing) as Beckett et al. wiped her off, took her vitals and dressed her. After what seemed like an eternity (for their ears, if not for the excitement), the Scottish doctor turned around to face SGA-1 and accessory marines, holding in his arms, dressed in a pink footsie, skull cap(with SGA insignia) and wrapped in a blanket, a quiet wraith baby.

Mairghread gazed out at her new family with wide, green-gold eyes that seemed to try to soak in everything. She could not be mistaken for a human infant, for her skin was the pale blue of her people, and there was the slightest hint of facial slits hidden amongst her dimples. However, it was difficult for even the fiercest marine to keep his heart stone cold. Her toothless gums, the way she sucked her thumb, and the soft shock of black fuzz peeking out from under the cap was too familiar, too much like any other baby.

Sheppard was the first to go up to her.

"Hello there," he cooed softly as he offered his finger for her to grasp, which she did. "She's tiny doc," he asked/told Beckett.

"Aye lad, she is," the melting Scotsman replied as he bounced her lightly.

"She's a wraith," Ronon reminded them as he kept his eye on Rodney, who was rabidly examining the stasis pod.

"Shh, will ya?" asked John as Mairghread ecstatically shook his finger with her tiny hand, which could not even completely encompass the colonel's forefinger. "We ready to go, doc?"

"Aye, let me just put the wee lass doon," Carson muttered and tried to settle the "wee lass" in the blanket nest on the stretcher.

Mairghread was having none of it. As soon as she was out of Beckett's arms, she set up a new bout of screaming. A nurse quickly scooped her up, and instantly she was as docile as before. The nurse, thinking that she had simply been uncomfortable, tried to set her down again.

This process was repeated several times with identical results. Someone new would hold her, she would stop crying, but as soon as they tried to put her down, she would screech.

"Just hold her!" shouted Ronon at last, who appeared to be in pain.

Teyla serenely cradled the now hysterical Mairghread in her arms and re-swaddled her. Seemingly content that no one was going to try and put her down again, the tiny wraith-child snuggled into the Athosian's arms, sucked her thumb and dropped off to sleep.

"Alright kids," whispered Sheppard, so as not to wake the baby. "Pack it up! We'll come back _later_ Rodney," he said, forestalling any arguments from the technophile.

"Ronon," he muttered to the Satedan as they walked back towards the village and the gate. "Chill. She's just a baby."

Ronon simply snorted disbelievingly and walked closer to Teyla.

TBC

Next: Bringing Home Baby


	7. Bringing Home Baby

**Bringing Home Baby**

* * *

Cainwen: I know it's short. I promise to update tomorrow, if you promise to **REVIEW!!!**

* * *

"Well, how'd it go?" asked Dr. Weir as the team stepped through the gate and the wormhole closed behind them. 

"Good," said Sheppard. "A little weird, but good."

"Oh," replied Elizabeth. "And Mairghread?"

Teyla stepped forward. On the way back to the gate, they had of course stopped by the village. There, one of the women provided Teyla with a baby sling "to make travel simpler" she said. The Athosian gracefully lifted the sleeping babe to show Elizabeth.

For a fleeting moment, a look of revulsion passed over the leader's face. However, it was quickly replaced with that loving, indulgent and gently fierce pride generally seen on the face of a new aunt or grandmother as the baby stirred, awoke and gazed at the tall, curly haired woman.

Dr. Weir made the soft clicking noise with is universally understood to mean "oh, how precious/adorable/tiny she is" and gently stroked the baby's cheek with a finger. The wise leader had clearly melted in the gold-green eyes of the babe.

"If ye doon't mind," interrupted Beckett. "Ah'd like to take her oover tae tha nursery."

"Oh, of course," murmured Dr. Weir, coming out of her maternalistic trance.

"Teyla, luv?" Beckett waved her on in front of him, Sheppard, Ronon and several others following behind.

ooooooooooooooooo

"Well doc?"

Beckett sighed heavily. He was _trying_ to give the wee lass a bath and then check her more thoroughly before feeding her and putting her to bed. However, the crowd of spectators, included Sheppard, Teyla, Rodney, Elizabeth and what seemed to be all of off-duty Atlantis, plus Ronon, who seemed to be on the verge of exploded with the presence of a wraith in his territory, reminded Beckett acutely of his stint as an obstetrics intern.

Then, in a small Glasgow hospital, there had been anxious, bordering on panicked, fathers, mothers and relatives of all degrees.

Now, he had surrogate mothers, fathers and relatives of yet-to-be-determined degrees all breathing down his neck and he found it rather irritating.

"It's going fine, Sheppard," Beckett struggled to control his temper. Fortunately for all concerned, Mairghread decided that it was an ideal moment to experiment with splashing, which sent everyone but Teyla and Carson back several steps. For a moment, Ronon looked as though he were about to attack, but clearly he ended up thinking better of it.

"Och noow, wae're just hav'ng fun, aren't we, lass?" the Scotsman crooned in his soothing brogue as he gently lifted her from the infant bathtub and wrapped her in a towel. He turned to Sheppard. "Colon'l, would ye taeke her oover tae tha changin' table, while Ah get soom clothes faer the wee bairn?"

"Uh, sure," replied Sheppard as he awkwardly took the cooing infant and held her as though she would shatter in his hands.

Having retrieved a onesie and sleeping sack, Carson turned around from the dresser to see that Sheppard had not moved, seemingly rooted to the spot, while everyone had crowded around him.

"Out o' ta tha wae!" he said loudly as he plowed through the spectators. By the time he reached Sheppard, Radek had materialized out of the crowd and was holding Mairghread, speaking to her in Czech and tickling her while she giggled, while Sheppard looked on in evident relief.

When the Czech made no sign of moving, Beckett cleared his throat loudly. Zelenka looked up at him with wide, inquiring eyes.

"Oh, yes yes, of course," he mumbled and carefully made his way through the crowd to the changing table where he set her down like an old pro and quickly dried and diapered her without so much as the blink of an eye.

"How'd you learn to do that, Radek?" asked John wonderingly.

"Oh, um, many nieces and nephews," the wild-haired scientist replied offhandedly.

TBC

Next: Baby Games


	8. First Outing

**First Outing **

* * *

Cainwen: Hi everyone! Sorry not to have updated. 6 weeks of ironing caught up with me. This is where I will be really begin to stray from canon a bit (like I haven't already?) I am skipping over the events in "The Return" parts one and two. As far as I can see, it's just a blip on the radar screen, and an annoying one at that. It's referenced briefly in two following episodes, but if I need them, I'm sure I can concoct an explanation. Take that Lanteans! (can you tell I don't like them?)

* * *

"Why wont she stop crying?!" screamed Rodney in frustration.

It was six o'clock in the morning, and after a long night in the lab, the last thing that Rodney thought he needed was a screaming kid, a laughing Sheppard, growling Ronon and a sleeping Carson and Teyla. However, that's what he had.

Carson and Teyla had been up what seemed to be all night alternately trying to get Mairghread to sleep and to stop crying. It had become clear that her infancy would last a little longer than expected, but that her growth would soon after accelerate at a greater than expected pace.

This, unfortunately, meant a few more weeks of sleeplessness for the team.

"Did you try feeding her?" asked Sheppard between guffaws.

"I just did!" shrieked Rodney as he picked up the still-tiny wraith from her bouncy seat.

"Did you burp her?" asked Ronon, teeth clenched. Though over the past few days he had calmed down enough that he no longer kept his blaster charged at all times and had stopped looking like he was about to go on a murderous rampage, he was still clearly unhappy with the situation and, moreover, did not like the sound of a screaming child.

"What? No!"

"Oh, for Pete's sake, Mckay," cried John exasperatedly, taking the hysterical babe from the distraught physicist. "Didn't you read the handbook?"

"When have I had the time to read a stupid handbook?!" came Rodney's indignant rejoinder. "And since when are you the baby expert?" he turned on Ronon, who shrugged.

Sheppard draped one of the unfolded diapers over his shoulder and gently patted Atlantis's adopted daughter and most controversial resident on the back.

"McKay, go figure out if those quasi-ZPM's we found in the tree will work with Atlantis. Or go build your intergalactic bridge," he ordered as the baby burped and spit up some of her breakfast. "That's better, isn't it sweetheart?" he cooed to Mairghread before calling out the retreating back of McKay, "But not too fast! We don't need Caldwell coming by too soon!"

"Now that he's gone," said Sheppard to the wraithling. "What say we get you cleaned up and I show you Atlantis?"

oooooooooooooo

Clean, dressed in matching lavender footsie and cap (fashion conscienscious members of the expedition had carefully arranged Mairghread's clothes into matching outfits) and semi-sitting in the baby sling slung around Col. John Sheppard, Mairghread was given a tour of her new home.

Ronon followed close behind, a grim and threatening presence. He seemed to consider it his duty to protect Atlantis from whatever tiny threat she may pose. Unbeknownst to everyone but Teyla and two Marines, the Athosian leader had a plan to change the Satedan's mind about the wraithling.

First stop was, of course, the control room.

Reactions on the part of the control room team were mixed, but unsurprising. Some seemed unable to resist her tiny, azure charm, while others seemed unwilling to go near or look at the orphan.

"Can I hold her?" one of the linguists permanently on duty asked sheepishly. John nodded, and the young woman carefully lifted the baby from the sling, cradling her in her arms. "Aw, aren't you adorable?" she cooed to Mairghread, who stared back with her huge eyes and gently reached out to touch the pendent the scientist wore around her neck.

Ronon stepped forward, hand on blaster, but was stopped by the withering look given him by Elizabeth.

As Elizabeth turned from glaring down Ronon, she heard on the fringes of the circle the muttered protests of those displeased with the newest presence.

"Shouldn't have a wraith here. Murdering bastards."

"So what if she's a baby? She'll grow up like her parents."

"Bad blood."

Dr. Weir chose to ignore them, for now. Later, she would sit down and talk with the dissenting parties. Here and now was not the place. Besides not wanting to scream in front of the baby, she was aware of how sensitive John had become to the negative comments about Cullough.

"Alright, alright, everyone back to work," she called over the din as she claimed Mairghread from the Canadian technician. "There will be plenty of opportunities to play with this darling later."

As everyone returned to his or her stations, she had a whispered word with Sheppard.

"John, why don't you take her down to the mess for her midmorning bottle and then take her out on the balconies for a while? I'm sure she'd love to see the ocean."

oooooooooooooooooooo

As Mairghread steadily sucked at her bottle, cradled safely in John's arms, she seemed mesmerized by the flurry of activities around her and by the colorful, wiggling food which everyone seemed to be consuming in large quantities.

The longer they spent in the mess, the fewer protests there seemed to be. The more people who saw her and interacted with her, the more they realized that other than her skin color and the shape of her pupils, she was the same as a human baby. The feeding slit on her hand was no more than a dark patch of skin, and her lack of pointed teeth, or any teeth for that matter, made her a wholly unthreatening presence in an increasing number of minds.

Furthermore, those of a more accepting nature were now furiously trying to convince those of a less accepting one that Mairghread was both non-threatening and a brilliant stroke of luck/blessing in disguise.

A typical conversation went something like this:

"Sheppard shouldn't have brought that thing here."

"Mairghread isn't an 'it'. She's a she, and why shouldn't she be here?"

"She's a wraith!"

"So?"

"They're a race of murderers!"

"And she's three months old! She hasn't eaten a banana yet, let alone killed anyone!"

"But she will!"

"But she _hasn't_! Besides she might not. And how many people have you killed in your career?"

At this point, the first party would pause and consider this with the disturbed and terrified look of someone whose entire life-creed has just been conclusively disproven.

TBC

Next: Baby Games


	9. Baby's Bathtime

**Baby's Bathtime **

* * *

**Cainwen:** pretty please review! don't make me beg!

* * *

Teyla had joined John and Ronon on the balcony outside of Mairghread's quarters. The warm afternoon sunshine smiled down on the small group, which for all the world should have been photographed for Hallmark. Ronon had at last been placated by a plate of newly introduced barbecued ribs, and so was now leaning casually against the railing while John and Teyla played with the baby wraith on a blanket spread out on the ground.

John blew a gentle raspberry against Mairghread's tummy, which sent the infant into giggling ecstasy.

Teyla cocked her head to one side. "What was that?"

"Oh, well, in my family we called it a 'fubballow'," he replied as he tickled the wraithling and Ronon snorted.

Teyla studied the Satedan. Since lunch, a change seemed to have come over the giant man that could not be completely attributed to meat. He seemed to have become more comfortable around Mairghread than he ever had; a softness seemed to have come over him. She decided that tonight would probably be the best chance she would have to change his mind about the little girl.

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

That evening, as other members of the expedition sat down to dinner, write reports or watch movies (of which they had a greater selection now), Teyla, with her eternal bodyguard Ronon, settled down to getting Mairghread ready for bed.

Ronon had been quieter that afternoon and evening, even as he practiced with the marines. Everyone had noticed, which was probably the most surprising, since most people avoided Ronon in general—he was still a huge and frightening person, after all.

Teyla lay Mairghread on the changing table while Ronon filled the baby tub with warm (but not hot!) water. The tiny wraithling looked up at her with her huge eyes, which always seemed to have both an absolutely innocent child and wise old woman staring out of those two green-gold windows.

Carefully, she unsnapped the footsie and eased it over the baby's large head. If someone had told Teyla that one day she would both feel and act like a mother to a wraith infant, she would have laughed in their face. Her? Care for the devil spawn of the worst enemy imaginable? In the words of one of the marines, "If you believe that, I've got a bridge in Brooklyn I'd like to sell you…", wherever Brooklyn was.

But as she looked at the helpless infant in front of her, she could not help all her maternal instincts and yearning from swelling to the surface.

"Here," growled Ronon, breaking her reverie and returning with the tub, which he set on a table covered in towels.

"Thank you, Ronon," Teyla lifted Mairghread and held her to her shoulder, enjoying the softness of her baby skin, the warmth of her body, the sweet smell of infancy. It is a peculiarity to be noted among nearly all humanoid species that for the first year or so of life, their members exude a sweet, clean scent, which, it has been argued, is a highly evolved survival strategy. Whenever a female of the species smell this particular olfactory stimulus, it inevitably produces in them the desire to have a child of their own, ignoring the potentially fatal nature of such an endeavor, as well as the inevitable pain.

Whether or not this is actually so, Teyla was immensely content to gently splash the tiny blue baby in the green and white bathtub with warm water and caress her soft folds of baby fat with baby soap and fuzzy black hair with shampoo while her little darling cooed and reached for errant bubbles.

Ronon stood off to the side, frowning slightly, but not growling, as had been his custom of late. Tonight, the hulking former runner was not frowning solely because of the presence of a wraith, even a miniature one, in his domain. Rather, he was troubled by the invasive and confusing thoughts that had been springing unbidden to his mind ever since he overheard several conversations at the mess hall that morning.

For years, Ronon had buried that voice in his head that argued philosophical points, thrived on shades of grey and generally made things more complicated. When you're on the run from the wraith, life needs to be lived under simple rules, like 'don't stay in one place for more than a few hours. Large groups of people to be avoided.' and 'wraith bad. Guns and knives good'. Unfortunately, since arriving in Atlantis, that voice had been popping up more and more, and now it was yelling at him full throttle. The conversations he had had with Teyla on the matter at hand hadn't helped either.

On the one hand, the voice argued, she is a wraith, which has been previously established as bad.

On the other hand, membership in a certain race does not necessarily mean that an individual is doomed to the larger group's flaws or virtues. Look at the Genii. Definitely human, but also definitely evil.

So, if race did not determine someone's virtuous or demonic status, what did?

Their actions. There was not a single wraith who was not guilty of thousands of brutal murders, genocides, and who knew what other terrible crimes.

But what about Mairghread?

"Ronon?" Teyla's inquiring voice jerked the musing Satedan back to reality. In her arms, she held the wraithling, dressed for bed in a pink sleeper and quietly sucking her thumb. "Could you hold Mairghread for a moment? I am going to get us something to eat."

"I'll go," he said quickly, desperate not to touch the wraith child, but the Athosian shook her head.

"I do not want a roast chicken or barbecued ribs," she laughed gently as she placed the baby in his large hands. "I will return soon," she reassured him. "There is a bottle in the warmer. If it rings before I return, would you please feed her? Remember to check the temperature!" she called out as she went out through the door.

Teyla slipped into the adjacent apartment, where the two marine guards sat at the surveillance consoles, a tray of fruit salad, jello, waters and cold chicken already ready and waiting for Teyla.

"Pardon me, ma'am," ventured one of the marines as she joined them in front of the screens. "But do you really think is a good idea?"

Teyla simply offered her patented calm, assured smile.

TBC

Next: Left Holding the Baby


	10. Left Holding the Baby

**Left Holding the Baby **

* * *

"…and it seemed to him that he looked suddenly into the heart of the enemy and saw there love and understanding. Wonder came into his face, and then he smiled in answer." _Lord of the Rings, Book II._

* * *

And so Ronon was the one left holding the baby. Rather awkwardly holding the baby. 

It was at this point that that annoying voice in his head picked up its argument where it had left off.

Mairghread hasn't murdered anyone. She's a baby. She eats, sleeps, laughs, cries. That's it. The sum total of her actions to date. She hasn't even learned to sit up yet. You saw her hand—nothing. No feeding slit, no nothing.

Ronon stared down at this tiny being in his hands. She was so tiny in his huge hands. He realized with a jolt that he could easily crush her in his hands—that it was he, not she, that was the more dangerous threat in the room.

And she stared calmly back at him, quietly sucking her thumb. Ronon lifted her, still held in his two hands so that her eyes were level with his.

_And how many people have you killed…?_

As she gazed serenely at him, those words overheard in the mess came back to haunt him. How many people's deaths were on his head? How much blood was on his hands? Not even counting soldiers and wraiths, just the people upon whom he had brought the wraith. He did not know. Could not number.

And could never forgive himself.

_How many people had she killed? _

None.

These twin pools of golden-green light transfixed him as these disturbing revelations etched themselves into his mind. Within those eyes, the absolute innocence of the infant shamed him, and the absolute forgiveness of the woman within shocked him, terrified him.

A wave of understanding crashed over the former Runner, and he felt himself swept away in its tide. He realized that he had seen the heart of the enemy, and found there only acceptance, understanding, and love.

And he felt utterly lost.

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Next door, Teyla and the marines watched, Teyla serenely aware her instincts had been correct, the marines in total shock as the hulking Satedan slowly shifted the baby from being precariously held in his hands, to being securely cradled in his arms.

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Ronon slowly sat down on the floor, and simply stared at the tiny life in his arms.

His carefully constructed world, rules, hard-learned understanding was shattered and crashing down around his ears. Here, he held the enemy, and found that the enemy was not.

As though sensing his distress, for the first time, Mairghread struggled to sit up, and reached up with her damp hand to touch her friend's face.

She wobbled and swayed until a huge hand rest on her back for support. Ronon's face bent down towards her, her damp, azure fingers gently touching his check, and he did not flinch.

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

"Can you believe this?" one marine whispered to the other, who shook his head in disbelief.

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

The tender moment was broken somewhat by the insistent ringing of the bottle warmer on the side. Still entranced to a degree, Ronon rose to turn off the irritating machine and fetch the wraithling's dinner.

He tested the milk on the inside of his wrist, as he had seen the others do, and when it did not burn, offered it to the baby.

Mairghread, who was still sitting up, albeit very wobbly, tilted her head and looked from the proffered nipple to the man who now held her. After a moment, she latched on and leaned back into the crook of his arm, and seemed to snuggle deeper into the soft leather-and-linen-covered chest of the Satedan.

Ronon gazed down, amazed at the trust that the tiny babe had shown in him. A heavy ache settled on his heart as he thought of Melena, and what could have been. They had wanted a child. Had tried, had prayed. She could have been with child when with a brilliant flash, she was gone.

What would she have said, if she saw me now? Ronon wondered with a bitter sadness. She would have smiled, he thought. Melena had a soft spot for anyone or anything in need, from a baby mouse to a bear. Yes, Ronon thought, she would have held this baby, would have sung it, her, a lullaby, would have cared for it as her own baby, even as Teyla did now.

And Mairghread looked up at him with trust and love and understanding. Later, she may be a monster. Later, he could hate again. Now, she was a darling, as Beckett called her. Now, he could care for her, because that's what Melena would have done, would have him do.

Her bottle empty, Mairghread shoved it petulantly away and began to fuss quietly as her eyelids began to droop.

Quietly, hardly conscious of what he was doing, Ronon began to hum softly, his deep, rumbling bass serving to soothe and quiet the baby as she began to suck her thumb, and drift off.

TBC

A/N: Don't hate me! Don't Flame! Just Review!

Next: Baby Blues 1: Teething


	11. Baby Blues 1: Teething

**Baby Blues 1: Teething**

* * *

A dissonant chorus of "Doc!"s reached Carson Beckett's ears just as he was settling down to his morning cup of tea.

With a heavy sigh, he replaced the teacup on the saucer and went out to see what new catastrophe had hit Atlantis, or more likely, McKay and Sheppard.

"Wha's tha matter noo?" he asked long-sufferingly as he pulled on a pair of gloves and stepped into the examination area where his most accident-prone team had gathered, but instead of hearing Rodney's whining or Sheppard's protestations he heard the pitiful whimpers of a baby.

Surrounded by his teammates stood Ronon Dex, Mairghread sitting in his arms, her face damp with tears and looking wholly miserable. Her adoptive parents and uncles looked petrified with worry.

"Something's wrong with her, Carson!" Mckay nearly shrieked before adding sarcastically. "What do you think is the matter?!"

"She won't stop crying. She's acting like she's hurt, but we can't find out where," Sheppard clarified.

Carson allowed himself a small smile. At last, something simple and normal. He took off his gloves and washed his hands before offering the pouting little girl his finger, which she promptly grasped and began to gnaw on.

The Scot nodded. "She's aboot six months noow," he stated and seeing the still blank looks on the others' faces, explained further. "She's gettin' her milk teeth." Still receiving blank looks. "Teething." ah, that got a reaction.

"Well, do something!" cried Rodney. Carson sighed, exasperated with the ignorance of the physics genius.

"Thair's nothin' to do, Rodney. It's a natural process. Ah cahn only ease the pain," he told them as he fetched from the medicine cabinet some infant acetaminophen which he had had one of the chemists make up for him. He handed the bottle to Teyla along with the instructions. "One dropper full every four hours."

"That's it?" asked Ronon, clearly not pleased. Ever since Teyla had "worked her magic" with him, as Sheppard had put it, he had clearly adopted the wraith child, and hardly let her out of his sight. He had claimed her, and intended to protect her.

"You cahn give her something to chew," Beckett said. "A finger, a cold chew toy…"

"Frozen mini-bagels!" Rodney interjected, everyone turned to look at him. "What? Jeannie said that's what she used when um, whatshername, the kid, was teething."

Sheppard raised an eyebrow. "And you remember this why?"

"Bagels? There aren't any bagels on Atlantis," one of the nurses scoffed from across the room.

"Yes there are—" Rodney began before Sheppard cut him off.

"She's from New York," he muttered. "She's convinced that real bagels don't exist anywhere else."

"My mum always used a drop o' whiskey on tha gums," Carson mused, before quickly adding, "But Ah doon't know how her body would react tae that, so better not."

"When our children are cutting their teeth, my people give them a hard sweet biscuit," Teyla offered, and Beckett snapped his fingers and disappeared into the backroom to return with a box labeled "teething biscuits".

"Whoa whoa whoa, how old are those things?!" demanded Mckay.

Beckett grinned, pulled one out of the package and banged it against the metal bedside table, where it made a resounding "clunk".

"These last forever, Rodney."

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Armed with teething biscuits, Tylenol, and to-be-frozen teething rings, the team returned to the nursery to help their baby (as she was now called) through what Beckett assured them was going to be a very bad week.

Having been given the cherry-flavored Tylenol, and Ronon's finger to chew on while they waited for the rings to freeze, Mairghread seemed, if not comfortable, at least content. Granted, she refused to be put down, and did not even want to practice her newfound skill of crawling, but on the whole, it was better than that morning.

"How's our little girl doing?" asked Dr. Weir as she walked in for her daily visit. "Someone said you rushed her to Dr. Beckett this morning in a panic."

"Teething," stated John simply. "And she's not a happy camper."

Elizabeth walked over to Ronon, who was still holding the baby on the couch. Maighread had gotten a hold of his thumb and was steadily making it very soggy. The others (excluding Rodney, who had returned to his lab) had tried to give the Satedan a break, but neither he nor his darling was willing to separate. Ronon was a very protective father, and Mairghread seemed to share a special bond with him. Either that, or she thought his fingers were the best for teething.

"Poor baby," she crooned softly and ruffled the wraithling's hair. "Teething's no fun is it?"

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

"John, I want you to remind Ronon he promised to go with Zelenka to the mainland tomorrow," Elizabeth informed the colonel in her best no-nonsense voice over lunch.

"C'mon, Elizabeth, he volunteered for that 2 months ago," Sheppard protested. "Why don't _you_ remind him if you're so dead set on it?"

Dr. Weir only had to give her friend a smile to make him understand—she didn't want to have to face the wrath of the Satedan.

"Why?" John whined, sounding remarkably like Rodney.

"Because other people here want to spend time with her, and that's not going to happen with Ronon around. Now, go make sure he's on that jumper in the morning."

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

As John watched Ronon humming gently to a wailing Mairghread that evening, he though Elizabeth might be making a mistake.

He could understand the other members of the expedition, particularly the linguists and doctors, were absolutely fascinated by the wraithling and would give their right arms to spend time with her.

However, he could not minimize either the effect that the love of the child had had on the former Runner, or the way that now only he and Teyla seemed to be able to comfort her.

"Argh! Stop her! Can't you shut her up?!" shouted Rodney from his position on the couch where he was busily typing mission reports. Ronon turned from the freezer where he was fetching a new teething ring to glare fiercely at the physicist.

"You may leave if you find her cries troubling, Rodney," Teyla reminded him before the Satedan could come up with an appropriately ferocious response.

Her sore gums soothed by the soft and freezing cold ring, Mairghread stopped screaming and merely pouted and hiccupped. Her first tooth had broken through earlier in the afternoon, due to her accelerated growth, and Beckett predicted that at the rate she was going, she would have four teeth cut by the following afternoon.

The upshot of which was, she was tired, cranky, sore, and miserable, and only wanted to be held by Teyla or Ronon, but preferably Ronon, who had taken to humming what, in everyone's best guess, were old Satedan lullabies in his _basso profondo, _which rumbled and quieted the fussing child in a way that no one could match.

He was not going to like being told to leave his baby, even if it was just for one night, John thought unhappily.

TBC

Next: Baby Blues 2: Mommy's Missing


	12. Baby Blues 2: Mommy's Missing

**Baby Blues 2: Mommy's Missing **

* * *

Cainwen: Hello everyone! Thank you to whoever nominated my stories for the Stargate Fan Awards. I am very flattered. 

This chapter is a little weird, because it includes the perspective of Mairghread. Let me know if you like it!

Minor spoilers for "Echos"

* * *

Mairghread was absolutely despondent for the day and a half her 'daddy' (ie Ronon) was gone to the mainland. Even 'Mommy' (ie Teyla) and "Uncle" Carson, with whom she seemed to like to be because he spoke to her in Scots-Gaelic, could do little to comfort the little one. 

Her teeth were coming in quickly and with a vengeance, as though annoyed they had been held back for 18000 years. Fortunately, it turned out that wraith "milk teeth", as Carson called them, were indistinguishable from human baby teeth—round and blunt, which was a relief for all concerned.

While Elizabeth may have hoped that Ronon's absence (quite unwilling absence) would allow the scientists time to interact with her, most did not want to contend with the screaming baby. Information as to the development of the wraith may be important, but so were their eardrums and their sanity.

Mairghread was slowly becoming more aware of her surroundings and the people that inhabited them. She had realized the certain people were nice to be around, while others weren't. There was noisy Uncle Rodney, who _could_ be fun, but also yelled and whined a lot and hurt her sensitive wraith ears. Auntie Elizabeth was nice, but she didn't play much. There was Uncle John, who fubballowed her and chased her on the floor and had introduced her to the joys of mashed banana. There was Mommy, who sang softly and exuded a calm that Mairghread, extremely sensitive like her mother to the thoughts and feelings of others, appreciated. Strýček Radek spoke a funny, nice language to her, and let her play with his glasses. Uncle Carson spoke to her in her heart's tongue, the language of her _athair _and gave her hard cookies to gnaw on. Daddy held her in his strong arms and sang in his rumbly voice and fed her.

But he hadn't been there for a while and she was mad. She wanted her daddy, and no matter how much she tried this to tell her mommy and uncles and aunts, they wouldn't bring him.

And so Mairghread's cup ran-eth over when her daddy came back in time for lunch.

From between the bars of her crib, where she had been, she hoped, temporarily deposited so Mommy and Auntie Elizabeth could mash her banana and make her some hot cereal and a bottle, she caught a glimpse of her daddy's brown, tree-ish form.

Her initial smile turned to a frown. Her daddy was angry. Maybe he wouldn't play. Maybe he'd go away again.

But Mairghread soon realized that her fears were unfounded. As soon as Ronon picked her up, he smiled, not his customary feral grin, but a warm, fatherly smile.

"Hey baby," he rumbled, and Mairghread gave him a wet baby kiss. While Daddy had been gone, she had learned to _really_ sit up and to crawl terrifyingly fast. She was also beginning to vocalize and was beginning to try and sing, in her own way.

"Hello Ronon," said Auntie Elizabeth, a bowl of mashed banana in hand. "How was the trip?"

Ronon grunted and, shifting his baby to one arm, took the bowl and spoon held out by the expedition's leader before settling himself on the sofa, armed with banana, damp rag, baby and spoon.

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A few days later, Ronon was taking a long run through the city's catwalks. Teyla had seen a babbling Ancestor, but Beckett said nothing was wrong, and the "shrink", as Sheppard called her, thought it was all in her head.

Ronon didn't believe either. There was something wrong. Teyla had headaches for one thing. And seeing babbling Ancestors wasn't normal. But every time Teyla saw something, there was always a very good reason. And she was the only one who hadn't been affected by the damaged wraith device.

All of this left the Satedan rather upset. Of course, "rather upset" for him was like a normal person about to go on a murderous rampage.

He couldn't do anything to help her. No mad scientists to track down. No enemies to kill.

Ronon didn't like feeling helpless.

So he did the only thing he could. He went to take care of his Mairghread, his…daughter.

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Now everybody was worried. Mairghread could feel it. Something was wrong. More unfamiliar faces came to take care of her when her mommy and daddy or aunts and uncles should have. Mommy looked tired and worried.

Then Uncle John and Uncle Rodney didn't come by at all one day, and Mommy had a bad headache—when she came near, Mairghread could feel the ghost of it.

But these new people were teaching her how to…what did they call it? Sign. That was it. They want her to use her hands to tell them what she needed. It seemed a bit strange to the older part of her, but soon she was able to demand Mommy, Daddy, food, and other things.

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Elizabeth Weir was wondering whether or not to tell the already more-annoyed-than-usual Col. Caldwell that a baby wraith was now residing in Atlantis. After all, she _was_ supposed to keep Stargate Command aware of everything that was going on.

Nah, she decided after a moment's thought. The jealous colonel was willing to eliminate an entire whale species—he would not react kindly to the news.

No, she would just wait for their scheduled contact with General Landry—he was, at least, several million light years away and it would take at least three weeks before anything he threatened to do could be put into effect.

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Teyla fell back on the floor, her nose bleeding freely, before the image of the burned man.

Ronon quickened his pace to reach her, afraid for her. He had overheard Beckett talking about the dangers that the nosebleeds could forebode.

"Come on. Gotta get you to the Infirmary," he said as he helped her up.

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Mommy was missing. Something was wrong. Daddy knew it, and she could feel it from him, but her powers were still infantile and she could not get anything more than the vague feelings, flashes of her mommy in a white bed with wires attached to her.

Then _her_ head started to hurt like Mommy's had. And her ears hurt.

And Mommy was missing.

Everyone was worried, and Mairghread didn't like it. Their fears made her uncomfortable. Although she had figured out in the first weeks of her life before being placed in stasis how to keep her thoughts to herself, her heightened sensitivity, inherited from her mother, made it very difficult for her to keep the thoughts of others from floating into her consciousness. She always knew when they were someone else's—the older Mairghread, the part of her that knew everything there was to know about the wraith and had the maturity of a young adult—let her baby half know.

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As suddenly as it had started, the worry was gone. Everyone was happy. Daddy came in and picked her up and swung her around. She crowed and jabbered and gave him sloppy kisses before demanding to be fed (by noise and sign)—preferably _not_ the green bean mush, she thought, but the people hadn't taught her to say that.

Ronon glanced over at the entomologists who had volunteered to take the last shift with Mairghread, his raised eyebrow eloquently demanding why his little girl was putting her fingers to her mouth like that.

The squirrely little man and woman quickly explained that while Ronon had been busy with Teyla, Mairghread had been taught some basic sign language. They pointed out that she had learned incredibly quickly, and that she was asking for food.

Ronon quirked his eyebrow again before looking back to the growing, but still tiny baby in his arms.

"Hungry?" he asked with a smile, and Mairghread shook her tiny blue fist up and down at him.

"Oh, uh, that means 'yes'!" quipped the scientists in unison. It was rumored that they were dating, and further reasoned that if they weren't, they should be.

"How about we go see Teyla first?" he asked the child, who put her thumb to her chin and wiggled her fingers with a confused look.

"She's been calling Ms. Emagen 'mommy' and, uh, you 'daddy', Mr. Dex," said the bug-lovers quietly, interpreting the wraithling's signs for the Satedan.

"Oh," he replied, somewhat surprised and touched. "Yeah, uh, mommy," he repeated, and received a huge smile in return.

TBC

Next: Baby Blues 3: Colds

A/N: Not my best chapter to date, but please review!


	13. Baby Blues 3: Cold

**Baby Blues 3: Colds**

Or, How Ronon Learned not to take a baby into the infirmary.

* * *

"Are ye daft man?!" cried Beckett in seeming horror as he noticed for the first time that amid the bloody (in both senses of the word) chaos of the infirmary, a touching scene was unfolding by Teyla's bedside.

Ronon stood protectively over the Athosian and the wraithling who was sitting playing on her "mommy's" lap. Mairghread seemed to be babbling happily, crawling all over the formerly pristine bed and trying to relate something though noise and sign.

"What?" asked Ronon innocently, looking at the irate Scotsman.

"Ye cahn't bring a healthy babe to th' infirmary!" Carson cried as he stomped over. "Cahn't ye see, Lieutenant De Boer is working on a terrible cold?"

As if to emphasize his point, the sickly lieutenant sneezed a dozen times in succession before collapsing back on his pillows with a groan.

"Wraith don't get sick."

"We don't know that!" the overworked doctor replied angrily. "And we know nothing about wraith babes! Out!"

Unfortunately, the good Scotsman's worry was well founded. It didn't take long for roughly 8 month-old infant to come down with what Sheppard called 'the sniffles'.

Mairghread, it must be said, was none too pleased to have the sniffles. Her head felt fuzzy and stuffy. Her nose drooled. Her ears felt like they had skewers in them. There was a meanie in her head with a large mallet trying to get out. Everything ached. Even her _eyes _ached. She hadn't thought it was possible for eyes to ache.

The adult part of her knew that this was a perfectly normal part of life. As a child, she would have a human-like immune system, which would disappear as she grew older, as would the clotting factors in her blood and several other things. But no immune system was perfect, so sickness was to be expected, and what the humans called a cold was a relatively mundane and harmless infection.

The infant (and currently controlling) part of her found no comfort in this whatsoever. It may be normal, but it was still terribly unpleasant. And since her teeth were still bothering her, she was doubly miserable, and she had no compunctions about letting anyone nearby know.

She whimpered pitifully and twisted into many bizarre contortions in her attempts to get away from the thermometer that Uncle Carson was trying to put in her ear. It may only take a second, but it was still an annoying second. And her ear hurt to begin with.

When the doctor tried to shine his penlight in her eyes, she swatted at it and tried to bite him. Unfortunately, even with teeth she still weighed less than 15 pounds and was barely 27 inches long, so her worst attacks were not terribly formidable.

"Hmm. Slight fever, congestion, loss of appetite…," Beckett looked up at Ronon and Teyla, for all the world looking like terrified new parents. Anxiousness wasn't an emotion Carson had ever thought to see play across the former Runner's face, but he could swear he saw it now. "She's got a wee cold, tha's all," he reassured them as he ruffled her fluffy black hair. "Gi'e her fluids, Tylenol every four hours for the fever, make her as comfortable as possible."

As it turned out, "making her as comfortable as possible" was in fact a rather difficult task. Her tiny body was hot, but she trembled as though she were cold. She seemed terribly thirsty, but couldn't keep anything down. She was clearly exhausted, but unable to sleep.

And since she was unable to sleep, no one else could either.

"Shh, shh," John Sheppard whispered tiredly in Mairghread's ear as she whimpered and wailed at two in the morning.

Having heard through the grapevine that Mairghread had caught a bad cold, and that Ronon and Teyla seemed determined to get her through it themselves without the help of strangers (from Mairghread's perspective), Sheppard had dragged Rodney down to the South West pier to see if they could help, being, according to Mairghread, her uncles.

Rodney had left hours ago "to run some diagnostics". Ronon was preparing a bottle in the hopes that it would serve to sooth his distraught daughter, while Teyla had fallen asleep, curled up in a corner of the couch.

"How is she sleeping with all this noise?!" asked Sheppard incredulously as he walked back and forth with the screaming child.

"Didn't sleep at all last night," replied the Satedan with a shrug as he took his daughter and she took the proffered bottle, quiet for the first time in what seemed like hours.

They are talking too much! thought Mairghread as she welcomed the warm, soothing milk to her raw throat. Can't they be quiet?

"Hey, uh, Ronon, have you and Teyla, um, got a thing going?" inquired Sheppard out of the blue. When Ronon simply stared at him, he stuffed his hands in his pockets and laughed. "Probably the worst timing for a question like that."

It was, however, a legitimate question. It was hard not to notice the way the two aliens looked at each other, the camaraderie they had developed, or the way that when one was hurt or sick, the other one was there until the nursing staff kicked them out.

Add to that the fact that the majority of their personal belongings had migrated to their "daughter's" apartments, and the betting pool of Atlantis was already giving odds on when they would officially begin seeing one another.

Ronon looked around as he rocked gently on his feet while Mairghread drank. He knew it was a question that Sheppard had every right to ask. In one corner of the room, his own few belongings and a spare mattress from somewhere were piled. Seen clearly through the open doorway into the attached (assumed) living room was a bed that, rumor had it, Teyla had convinced some marines into helping her purloin from an empty room, as well as many of the more precious objects from her room.

The former Runner hadn't really thought about it, but it did kind of look like they had moved in together. The fact that they had both moved their stuff here because they wanted to be closer to Mairghread if she needed them wouldn't have stopped the Atlantis rumor mills, which were seemingly the only perpetual motion machines in the universe.

"Ya know what? I don't wanna know," declared Sheppard as he filled the humidifier again. "Until you two are ready to be married, I don't wanna know about it."

Ronon nodded. Despite the lack of romantic entanglement between the two of them at the moment, he understood the colonel's concern.

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Elizabeth Weir, alerted to the fact that Ronon and Teyla had holed themselves up in Mairghread's room for five days, denying even Sheppard entrance on the grounds that it was a sickroom and had reportedly gotten no sleep during this time, went to relieve them of their charge and order them to get some sleep.

It wasn't the parents she needed to convince.

Mairghread writhed and screamed as Elizabeth took her from a tired looking Teyla.

"Are you sure, Dr. Weir?" the Athosian inquired courteously as the expedition's leader nearly received a black eye from the infuriated babe.

"Nnnnnn!" grunted/screamed the wraithling before shouting at the top of her tiny congested lungs, "MAMAMAMAMAMAMAMAMAMAMA!"

Both women looked at each other in shock, before asking each other at the same time, "Did she just say what I thought she said?"

TBC

Next: First Steps


	14. First Steps

**First Steps **

* * *

Cainwen: In the words of Capt. Jack Sparrow, "Complications arose, ensued, were overcome." Enjoy!

* * *

Plans were underway for a small birthday party for the expedition's latest member.

Beckett estimated that she was approaching 1 year old, developmentally, so it seemed a good time to celebrate, despite the fact that they had no clue when her actual birthday was.

The mess hall was being covered in pink crepe paper (or what passed for it in the Pegasus galaxy), balloons of whatever color they had, and anything else decorative that could be found, including, but not limited to, Christmas lights.

News of her first word had spread through the city like wild fire, igniting hearts as it went. Somehow, the phenomenal joy that is associated with a baby's first words broke through many of the lingering barriers to her acceptance by the majority.

There was still a faction of the city that had not yet fallen for the adorable wraithling, but most had now come to, if not love Mairghread, at least accept her and recognize that she was not dangerous, and therefore could get into the spirit of throwing her a birthday party.

In her room, Mairghread was playful once more, having successfully conquered her cold. At the moment, she was giggling, holding on the bars of her crib and bouncing while Mommy, Daddy and Auntie Elizabeth talked. It was Mairghread's considered opinion that Auntie Elizabeth talked too much and played too little.

Mairghread was tired of bouncing in one place. She wanted to practice walking with her daddy before lunch and naptime.

"Dada!" she squealed to attract the attention of the adults. In the past few days, she had learned how to say mama, dada, no (which usually turned out nonononono!) and 'ef', which seemed to mean 'yes'. However, her main means of communication was still sign language, at which she was becoming increasingly fluent, due to the fact, they hypothesized, that there was a mature mind lurking somewhere in the infant form.

Ronon came over and picked his daughter up. He wasn't terribly interested in what Dr. Weir was saying, something about what not to say when Woolsey eventually showed up. Ronon didn't usually talk to him, so he figured he could Teyla handle that.

"What, baby?" he asked as he picked her up. She made the sign for walking, and he grinned. "Sure, let's walk."

"She wants to walk," he told the women. "I'm gonna take her down to the gym."

Teyla nodded her head in agreement, and Dr. Weir wisely said nothing.

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All of the gyms, as it turned out, were occupied by marines training new scientists in hand-to-hand combat.

It was raining, so the balconies were out of the question.

So, Ronon and Mairghread roamed the halls, Ronon bent double so the tiny girl could hold his fingers for support as she practiced walking.

A subtle change seemed to have come over Ronon, and just about everyone was noticing. He smiled more; not the terrifying, feral grin that they had come to associate with him, but an actual _smile_, used generally among humanoid species to indicate that an individual was experiencing the emotion of happiness. He talked in full sentences occasionally, and was beginning to converse. He seemed more at ease, as though having a "family" composed of "wife" and child, was helping to heal some of his more difficult and painful wounds.

Ronon had stopped wearing his wraith bone necklace 24/7. He had first moved it inside his shirt, until Mairghread figured out there was something there, then looped on his belt, till she figured that out too. Now it stayed with his blaster in his room until he went off world. People figured that Teyla had convinced him that it wouldn't be nice for Mairghread to find it. They underestimated the Satedan.

The halls were more crowded than usual. Nearly everyone had been grounded by Beckett for at least another week. Most of Atlantis had suffered from perforated eardrums during the whales visit, and, as the Scotsman had shouted at a whining Sheppard, "Ye've got ta heal! Gude God man, this isn't a bloody tele show! Gi'e it another week!"

It had, however, taken an enumeration of the nasty possibilities that could arise from inner ear infections, should Sheppard go off world with still perforated ear drums and run into trouble and get dirty water in their ears, etc, to convince the colonel of the doctor's wisdom.

As much as Ronon wanted to go off world, liked exploring, killing wraith of the kind that had tortured him, killed his people and made Mairghread an orphan, in his heart of hearts, he had to admit he _liked_ spending time with his daughter, as he had come to think of her, even as she grew and her skin grew paler, less pronouncedly blue, her facial slits less hidden by dimples. Here was an innocence he had never hoped to find again, and he would do anything to protect it. Melena had been his innocence once—her goodness bordering on the absolute. But Melena was gone. Teyla was beginning to fill a part of the gaping void Melena had left when she died, but Teyla had not Melena's innocence. Teyla was a warrior, a leader, wise, and gentle and good, but not innocent.

Mairghread was. Sheppard said she had all knowledge of the wraith locked up in her head. Ronon couldn't change that. But he could see to it that she never witnessed atrocities herself, with her own eyes, make sure she never suffered as her biological parents did, never as he did, or Teyla did. Ronon would protect his daughter, his innocence with his dying breath and beyond, if he could.

"Ronon! Hey, hold up!"

Ronon looked up to see Sheppard jogging towards him from the mess hall.

"Hey, um you don't want to go that way right now. They're, um, etting-gay eady-ray the arty-pay," he muttered in pig latin.

The most disconcerting thing about Mairghread they had realized, once you got past her unnatural skin color, was the fact that she seemed to learn any language spoken to her for more than a few minutes. She clearly understood nearly every language spoken by the expedition, including English, German, French, three dialects of Spanish, Swedish, Icelandic, Czech, Mandarin, Polish, Russian and others, with the exceptions of Cretan (the sole Cretan among them never seemed to emerge from her anthropology lab), Afrikaans (the marine from that country was the strong, silent type), and an Indian dialect (the good biologist was on a survey of several planets, and had only come back to wash and sleep).

This, however, left the adults with a difficulty—what language to use when discussing something in her presence that they didn't want her to understand? They had tried spelling, only to realize that this only worked with about half of her caretakers. Esperanto was proposed, and rejected. If she could learn Czech, said Rodney, Esperanto would be a piece of cake. However, pig-latin for the time being seemed to puzzle her.

"Oh yeah," Ronon remembered now—the party was going to be after Mairghread's afternoon nap, when she was most boisterous. Accordingly, he swung the baby, who had been trying to tug her father along to the mess hall, where she could watch the wiggly food, and maybe find a banana, into his arms and held the squirming child firmly. "It's her lunch time anyway," he said as he tickled her tummy. "Isn't it, little girl?"

They were hiding something. Mairghread _knew_ they were hiding something from her, but none of them were scared, like when Mommy disappeared. She hadn't quite figured out that strange garbled language they spoke when they were hiding whatever it was, but it couldn't be something bad. And right now, satiated with noodles and carrots and applesauce, sleep pulling heavily at her eyes, she couldn't be troubled to figure it out.

It didn't take long after she woke up to find out just what it was they had been concealing from her for these past days. Having been suitably dressed in a pretty pink hand-smocked dress (compliments of Dr. Mary, the British linguist) and matching booties, she was carried, wiggling and trying to get down and walk the entire way, by Ronon to the mess hall.

"Surprise!"

Mairghread screamed as friends, adopted family and semi-strangers jumped out of nowhere and shouted at her.

"Oh, darling, hush," Teyla soothed the upset babe, who was admittedly slightly above her head in the arms of Ronon.

"Perhaps that was a bit too much of a surprise for the babe," Dr. Mary whispered to the entomologists where they stood by the present table, which, considering the birthday girl's still controversial nature, was pleasingly over flowing.

When at last her tears of fright were over, Mairghread realized that it was a phenomena called a "birthday party", and that it was a wholly agreeable one, since it generally included ice cream, cake, and other normally forbidden food and presents, in this case, all for her. Mairghread was by no means a selfish child, but it is always nice to be given things.

Uncle Rodney had given her a pretty rag doll; she had a suspicion that her gruff physicist had dyed the doll to match her own azure skin tone. Uncle Carson gave her a soft teddy bear he had commissioned from one of the Athosians. Uncle John gave her a bouncy red ball. Auntie Elizabeth gave her a book of poems with pictures. Daddy gave her a noise maker, and Mommy gave her a nice sweater.

Other presents were waiting to be opened, but someone pointed out that it might be a good idea to space them out a bit—too many could overwhelm her.

So Mairghread was sitting on the floor with her dolly by Uncle John's leg. Mommy had gone off to talk to people. Daddy had gone to get food, but now he was a few feet away, listening to Uncle Carson.

She wanted Daddy. She used Uncle John's leg to pull herself up; Sheppard felt the tug on his leg, but didn't bother to look down. Mairghread had been using legs to practice standing for a few days—when she wanted to walk, she would let him know.

So he thought. But Mairghread was in no mood to wait for someone's hand. Letting go of the rough blue denim, she held out her arms for balance and took one wobbly step.

Noticing the sudden lack of pull on his leg, Sheppard looked down to see the wraithling take another tottering step towards Ronon.

"Ronon, look!" he said in a stage whisper.

Everyone in the vicinity turned at the tone in his voice. Ronon crouched down on the floor, arms held wide open, a smile as broad as the galaxy itself plastered across his face, as Mairghread toddled forward and wrapped her arms around his neck.

TBC

Next: Telling Gen. Landry


	15. Telling Gen Landry

**Telling Gen. Landry**

Cainwen: For heaven's sake people, I work myself to the bones of my fingers, turning out the best I can from my coffee-deprived mind, and you can't review? Pretty please review! I promise to make the next chapter longer!

Elizabeth Weir stood in the control room before the screen as the technician dialed earth for her check in with General Landry, bracing herself. She could put it off no longer—she had to tell the general of the wraithling in their midst.

Admittedly, an irresistibly adorable wraithling. Now bordering on toddler-dom at roughly 1 ½, she was terribly active, and had a remarkably vocabulary, speaking nearly twenty words in a variety of languages, which the resident speech pathologist found fascinating. However, none of SGA-1 seemed surprised. Ronon and Teyla were simply the proud parents, and Sheppard and Rodney reasoned that there was an adult in there somewhere—why shouldn't she be a little quicker on the uptake?

She was a welcome visitor everywhere in Atlantis. The few who didn't like her were silent, and some, though voicing their displeasure in the mess at night, would smile and tickle her when she dropped by. This alone would support her in the IOA fight.

"You have the security footage and the baby pictures?" the doctor asked the Canadian technician, who nodded and smiled.

"Elizabeth, nice to see you," Gen. Landry's voice and image on the screen startled the diplomat.

"General Landry, likewise," she replied cautiously.

"Col. Caldwell reported you had a close call when he was there."

"Yes…"

"You're hiding something. Out with it."

Elizabeth pursed her lips. "What Col. Caldwell didn't tell you, because he didn't know, is that we have adopted an infant wraith."

General Landry smiled calmly. "I'm sorry, I think we have a bad connection. It sounded like you said y'all had adopted a wraith."

"Au'ie 'Li'beh'!"

Before Weir could answer the dumbfounded general in another galaxy, a tiny blue ball of energy wobbled over and latched itself to her leg. She smiled and picked up the toddler, who was clutching her teddy bear with one arm and beaming, said, "Hi Au'ie 'Li'beh'!"

"Hello Mairghread," replied the leader, who recognized this for the golden opportunity it was to introduce the general to the wraithling. "Can you say hi to General Landry?"

"Lau'ry?" asked Mairghread as she signed 'laundry'.

"No," laughed Elizabeth. "Not 'laundry'. Landry."

"Hi Ge'ral gampa lau'ry!" shouted the toddler, signed simultaneously 'hi general grandpa laundry'.

General Landry looked off screen and smiled. Someone in the other gateroom must had translated her babble and sign for him.

"Hello Mairghread," he said. "How are you today?"

Mairghread seemed to consider this for a moment with great seriousness before smiling the ecstatic smile of the very young and proclaiming, "'kay!"

The military man seemed to have melted, even from a million light years away, in the little girl's hand.

Having handed the toddler off to Zelenka, who had chased her into the control room, Weir and Landry moved on to discuss other business until their time was almost up.

"Elizabeth, you know the IOA's gonna send Woolsey out there," he warned. "He's not going to be kind."

"I know," she replied, with a slight bow of her head. "We're prepared for the worst he can do."

The general smiled. "Good. I'd hate to see anything happen to her. A smile like that is priceless."

Mairghread was, of course, blissfully unaware that her happy family life had now been placed in jeopardy because of the absurdity of earth politics.


	16. Why Mommy and Daddy Should Stay Home

** Why Mommy and Daddy Should Stay Home**

* * *

This chapter is dedicated to Kyrie, who had to suffer through finals today, yet found time to review. Tapabh leigh!

* * *

In the weeks while Atlantis waited for Woolsey to darken its doorstep, Mairghread progressed rapidly. Toilet training was achieved with few tears, and the terribly two's were skimmed through with minimal temper tantrums. Mairghread was increasingly verbal and curious about her world, while becoming more and more attached to people, even as they became more attached to her.

Up until now, SGA-1 had been on light, non-off-world duties—they had taken on the responsibility of the infant wraith. However, as she was now "three-ish", Weir felt comfortable sending them to a simple, minimal risk, one day check-in mission. Carson and Radek had offered to watch the little girl for the morning, while Dr. Mary had offered to take the afternoon shift.

Mairghread knew they were up to something she wasn't going to like. They had given her apple pie and ice cream for breakfast. The last time they did that, she had been given a whole bunch of injections.

Ronon and Teyla were already dressed for off-world travel when Carson and Radek arrived to babysit.

Ronon knelt down and held his arms wide to his daughter. "Come say bye to Daddy," he told her as she ran to him and wrapped her arms around his neck.

"Daddy stay," she begged piteously as Ronon returned her hug. With a soft smile, the Satedan kissed the top of her head and said reassuringly, "I'll be back to tuck you in tonight. Maybe even for bath. Be a good girl, okay?"

"Okay," she pouted as Daddy ruffled her hair and then ran to latch herself onto Mommy, who had also crouched down to say goodbye.

"Farewell, sweetheart," Teyla murmured into her daughter's dark hair. "We will return shortly."

Carson gently pried the wraithling from her mother and held her.

"Wee'll be fine, luv," he reassured Ronon and Teyla, who looked almost as reluctant to leave Mairghread as she was for them go.

Teyla smiled and they left quickly, before they changed their minds.

Mairghread promptly burst into tears.

Fortunately for all concerned, Ronon and Teyla (and the rest of the team, surprisingly) returned not only safely, but early. Mairghread ran to greet them, covering them with kisses and nearly crushing them with her hugs.

This was repeated for several days, each time Ronon and Teyla returning without incident. Which, Rodney pointed out sarcastically, was something of a record for Team Sheppard. Sheppard offered that Mairghread was a good luck charm, or had swung their karma to the positive side of things.

A "good luck charm" is, according to earthen superstitious belief, a person or object which is supposed to attract luck of a fortuitous nature to the bearer. Luck is an uncontrollable, finicky power which has done more harm than good to humanoid species who believe in it. It demands complex and absurd rituals to be placated and charmed into behaving in a way that people would like, and then usually turns against them, so what they want turns out to be worse than what they had before.

Karma is an equally unpredictable force by which the universe is said to maintain the necessary balance of things. However, since things often intended to do good often end up doing ill, and ill things usually end up doing ill (shockingly!) karma is usually bad to its humans. If karma were cash, nearly everyone would be not only bankrupt, but in such debt that they turn to loan sharks and end up in the nearest river with stones tied to them. Hence, turning to luck (see previous paragraph).

Having said this, it is hardly surprising that on the fifth day that Team Sheppard left for a standard meet and greet, they were late reporting in, missed two check-ins and ended up having to be extracted from a very nasty stand-off situation.

That morning, although she had seemed to have been getting used to Mommy and Daddy leaving in the morning and being home by bed time with the promise of spending the weekend with her, Mairghread was very clingy.

"No!" she had whined and begged as she clung, leech-like, to Ronon's neck. "Don't go!"

It had taken both Carson and Major Lorne working with Ronon to release the Satedan from the hysterical girl's grasp.

As Ronon and Teyla made a hasty escape, Carson held Mairghread on his lap, rocking gently and trying to sooth away her tears.

"Hush, luv, what is it? Ye know they'll cume back."

She looked up at him, eyes brimming with tears, her face serious.

"Something's going to go wrong," she had replied in Gaelic. "Bad men."

Her fears were fully justified when late that night Team Sheppard was brought in on gurneys and rushed to the infirmary.

Mairghread woke with a start in her bed. Several weeks ago the crib had been converted for her, so it was child's play for her to crawl out of bed and slip past the sleeping entomologists.

Mommy and Daddy had come home and they needed her. The bad men had hurt them.

The two marines who were stationed in the room next door as a security measure followed the little girl from a short distance. They had orders to follow her, to never leave her completely alone for a moment, but unless she was doing something that posed a threat to herself, others or Atlantis, they were not to interfere. It was important she not feel as though she were a prisoner.

The three-and-a-half-year-old hurried down the hallways with the wobbly run of the young. She seemed to know exactly where she was going. Through corridors, around corners she went, until she came to a transporter, which of course would not open for her.

Unobtrusively, the marines came forward and, kneeling down next to her, Lt. Crawford asked gently, "Where are you trying to get to?"

"Mommy and Daddy, in the 'firmary," she told him seriously. "But it wont open for me," she said petulantly.

Sergeant Chekov whispered in Lt. Crawford's ear, "Their mission went badly."

Crawford nodded, even as he opened the transporter for Mairghread.

"She'll walk to the infirmary anyway if we don't use this thing," he said. "Might as well save us all a long walk."

The infirmary was hopping as medical personnel ran back and forth with blood samples, ekg's, ultrasounds, ivs and other medical paraphernalia. Team Sheppard had been found, everyone unconscious except for Ronon, who had collapsed as soon as they were rescued. Now Beckett was trying to find out how badly everyone was hurt.

Mairghread walked through it all, her miniature stature allowing her to walk between and underneath people, tables and gurneys as she walked as directly as she could to where her parents were lying.

She dove under the curtain that separated the already looked after Teyla and Ronon from the chaotic infirmary. Silently, she dragged a chair closer to Ronon's bed and clambered up so she was sitting on his legs.

"Daddy!" she whispered loudly. Getting no response from the Satedan, she bounced lightly and repeated, much louder, "DADDY WAKE UP!!!"

Ronon woke with a snarl and a jolt. However, seeing his daughter sitting on his legs, he leaned back into his pillows and removed the nasal cannula from his nose.

"What are you doing here?" he asked his daughter tiredly, holding out his right arm to her. She crawled up and settled by his side in the crook of his arm.

"You were hurt," she pointed out. "You _are_ hurt," she added, accusingly, sitting straight up and pointing at his left shoulder. "Bad men!"

"Hmph, yeah, bad men," he replied, gently pulling her back down. "But I'm okay. I'll be fine."

This time Mairghread snorted. Sometimes, she seemed a lot older than she looked, Ronon mused. Sometimes, the adult in her peeped out and surprised them.

"Mommy? Uncle John? Uncle Rodney?"

"They're okay too," Ronon reassured her. "Just a little bruised."

"Mommy and Daddy stay home," Mairghread told him sleepily, her eyes drifting shut. "Stay away from bad men."

Ronon didn't answer. He simply stroked his daughter's dark hair until she fell asleep again.

They had escaped this time with relatively minor complications. A bumps and bruises. They had lost consciousness because of some kind of knock-out-gas-bomb the natives had thrown into their hiding cave. It had been rather effective on everyone. He had been able to hold out until the 'cavalry' arrived to clear a path through the angry nomads.

But now, as he lay in the infirmary (overnight for observation, as usual), his shoulder aching where a well-aimed stone had hit right on his old wounds, his daughter asleep by his side, Teyla in the next bed over, Ronon realized how much the adoption of Mairghread had done to change him. Suddenly, there was someone who depended on him again. Who waited for him to come home. Who would be utterly destroyed if he didn't come back safely.

He smiled. If the wraith lord who had made him a Runner could have seen him, he would have known that he had lost completely, and that Ronon had come out the winner. Ronon hadn't been broken. He hadn't been destroyed by hatred. He was nearly whole again, with Mairghread as his daughter and innocence, Teyla as his partner and comforter, all of Atlantis as his extended family.

Take that, he thought smugly, hoping, wherever that wraith was, he was writhing in agony alongside the queens who had orphaned his daughter.

**TBC **

Next: The Woolsey Cometh**  
**


	17. The Woolsey Cometh

**The Woolsey Cometh**

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Dedicated once again to all those who have to suffer through finals. Thanks for all your lovely reviews!

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The Daedelus arrived all too soon in Team Sheppard's mind. Not that they could have hoped for it to stay away any longer. Landry had somehow managed to delay its departure by a week and a half, so when it arrived, Mairghread was a cute 5 or 6 year old. It was becoming increasingly difficult to judge her simply by her physical development. Her adult "half" was becoming more prominent in her personality and thought processes.

No one was sure if this would be calculated for or against her by the irritating bureaucrat.

Fate/Luck/Karma had decided to throw them a bone, however. On the Daedelus, with Woolsey, was General O'Neill.

"General, what a pleasant surprise," exclaimed Weir, ignoring Woolsey, when they beamed down. "We weren't expecting you."

"Exactly," he replied as they walked to her office, leaving Woolsey in the care of a few marines. "What good is inspection if you're prepared?"

"Why are you really here?" she asked when they were alone in her closed office.

"Well, Hank told me you, the collective you, had adopted a wraith baby named, uh, M…"

"Mairghread."

"That's it!" he pointed at her. "Said Woolsey would probably come and order her execution. Asked me if I could come and maybe give you a hand."

"I wonder why he would do that?" wondered Weir aloud. O'Neill shrugged.

"Probably had something to do with her calling him 'General Grandpa Laundry' I should think," replied the general with a smile.

Sheppard bounced over-enthusiastically into the Dex-Emmagan apartment on the Southwest pier and announced loudly, "The Woolsey cometh!"

"Uncle John!"

Apparently unconcerned about the possibility of immanent doom, Mairghread ran and leaped into Sheppard's arms, covering him with kisses.

"Lookit!" she said excitedly and pointed to her dress. "Mommy gived me a new dress!"

"Wow, let me see," Sheppard set her down and held her at arm's length as though apprising the little girl.

Woolsey would have to have a heart of stone not to melt for her, he thought. Admittedly, her facial slits were slightly more prominent now, but her skin had faded so it wasn't _so_ blue—more like the color of someone who's stayed in a cold pool too long. Her eyes were still large, innocent, and pretty golden-green orbs. If the light wasn't too bright, you'd never know her pupils were slitted like a cat's. Her teeth were normal, her nails short. Her hair hung past her shoulders, and today Teyla had given her school-girl braids, one falling over each shoulder. In a sunshine yellow dress, white tights and patent-leather mary-janes, well, it was hard to imagine her cuter, even if her skin were pink.

"John," sighed Teyla as she came into the living room from her bedroom. She was dressed simply in a pale red flowing, slightly tailored sleeveless dress (it is rather ironic that it takes longer to explain a simple dress than a complicated one). Her hair hung loose and tucked behind one ear. "It is good to see you."

"Came by to let you know Woolsey wants to see you guys asap," he told her, and then more quietly, "How's Ronon holding up?"

Teyla dipped her head. "He is…quiet," she murmured, and Sheppard winced. When Ronon was quiet bad things happened. Like marines ending up in the infirmary with broken arms and concussions.

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

"Well Miss…Emmagan, I am told you and Mr. Dex have claimed responsibility for the wraith…child," Woolsey spat the last word out as though it were a horrible contradiction in terms—worse than 'jumbo shrimp' to the power of 'military intelligence'.

"Oh, for Pete's sake," cried an exasperated O'Neill. He had already sat/suffered through (in near silence) Woolsey's interrogation, um, interview with Dr. Weir and Col. Sheppard, and he was fed up. "How many times are you going to ask the same questions?"

"General O'Neill," Woolsey replied, clearly insulted. "I am merely trying to grasp the facts of the matter."

O'Neill opened his mouth to give a stinging rejoinder when the doors to the conference room burst open and a small, blue and yellow whirlwind swept in, followed by two mortified marines, and planted herself next to a stunned Woolsey.

"Stop it," she ordered the flabbergasted bureaucrat. "You're giving Daddy and Mommy and Uncle John and Auntie 'Liz'beth headaches."

The grownups around the table pursed their lips and tried to keep from laughing at the scene in front of them.

"Mairghread," whispered Dr. Weir, struggling to keep a straight face. "Be nice."

Mairghread looked at her aunt, and seemed to remember that ordering someone to stop what they are doing is not the best way to introduce yourself when the aforementioned holds your fate in his sweaty little palms.

Accordingly, she straightened her posture and held out her right hand to the nervous Woolsey.

"Hello, my name is Mairghread. It's very nice to meet you Mr. Woolsey," she said carefully.

Woolsey looked at her small hand as though it were some grotesque, contaminated thing and reached out to take it in a similar manner to a person about to pick up a dead and half-decomposed sewer rat. As soon as his fingers touched hers, she grasped his hand firmly and shook it with childish vigor.

When Woolsey had taken his hand back and was surreptitiously wiping it, Mairghread stepped back and studied him with her head tilted to one side. Woolsey squirmed like a little boy caught at trying to put a frog in his sister's bed.

"You came here to see me," she told him. "So stop bothering my family."

Woolsey sat there, his mouth opening and closing silently, like a fish, or a very drunk person trying to say something without slurring.

Mairghread studied him for another moment. His fear was acrid in her mouth; it pulsed against her like a burning tide. "You're afraid of me," she announced, slightly surprised. "Stand up."

Utterly at a loss and in complete shock, Woolsey did as he was bid. Mairghread stepped up to him, and putting her hand on top of her head, carried it across to measure herself against the man. Her hand barely came to his waist. Her manner may be mature, but her stature was small.

She stepped back and looked up sternly at the bureaucrat, who sat down under her fierce stare. "You're twice as big as me. Why are you afraid?" she watched as his eyes flitted over her face and to her hand; his thoughts oozed like radioactive sludge through the cracks of the walls she had begun to erect between her mind and others. "Because I am wraith? Because my skin is blue, not pink like yours?" she pointed to Ronon. "His skin is brown. Are you afraid of him?" she pointed to the General. "He has hair. Are you afraid of him?"

Woolsey had no reply for her questions. Those sitting around the table realized the stark irony in the scene before them. Woolsey had come to interrogate and judge the little girl, only to find himself placed under the microscope by her and found inadequate.

Mairghread tilted her head to the other side, and seemed to consider the deflated man for another minute before deciding him to be non-threatening to her family and turning her attention to General O'Neill.

She felt no fear from him. Amusement, at how she had handled Woolsey. Annoyance _at_ Woolsey, for being an idiot. And something else. Something deep, pervasive, burning, like acid swallowed in a pill that slowly leaks out and burns from the inside, eating away unseen but felt.

"You're hurt," she announced as she walked around the entire table to stand in front of him. Perhaps she realized that Woolsey would have jumped twelve feet in the air if she had walked behind him.

All eyes turned to stare at Jack, who was putting on his best I-have-no-clue-what-you-are-talking-about act. Dr. Weir was debating whether or not to page Dr. Beckett—it would be just like the general to hide something if he knew it would prevent him from doing something he wanted.

"I swear I'm not!" he insisted as the little wraith stood next to his chair, waiting patiently for him to turn and face her.

"Yes you are," she told him, and pointed to his chest where the heart is said to reside. Not the major organ of the pulmonary and circulatory systems, but the 'organ' that was the center for emotion and non-physical/mental hurt.

Images flitted through her mind like so many dark butterflies. Images of a young boy, laughing with a younger O'Neill, playing with balls, fishing, listening to stories. Then memories of a sharp crack, with the word "gunshot" connected to the sound as algae covers a river rock. A tiny moving room, the boy crying and bleeding, O'Neill crying and trying to comfort the boy, calling his name, "Charlie!" over and over as the boy's eyes close, as the others in the room push O'Neill out of the way. A heavy guilt weighing upon his heart, as a cannon ball attached to his leg; sorrow like a stormy, cold ocean, and he is pulled down, down…

She studied his face for a long moment, and then clambered up onto his lap. "Charlie," she said softly.

A sorrowful silence filled the room. Nearly everyone in the room knew about the general's late child, and knew not to mention him in public.

Jack stared at the little blue child on his lap.

"How do you know about Charlie?" he asked huskily, his voice betraying his hurt.

Mairghread rested her head on his chest and closed her eyes. A moment later, so did Jack. The conference room was absolutely silent. Slowly, O'Neill's arms, which until now had been gripping the arms of his chair came up to wrap themselves around the little girl in a hug.

Mairghread shoved aside those ramshackle walls between her mind and O'Neill's, letting his thoughts and griefs flow out of him, like poison from a wound. She did not have to pry, no questions needed to asked, no comfort sufficient, except for the silent communion of souls both burned by death.

O'Neill didn't fight as the little child reached out to touch his mind. Somehow, he was reassured by the calm frankness of her manner, her childish openness. As thoughts flowed between them, he felt the love, compassion, and understanding she offered, without saying any of the words which had meant to help but had hurt so much in the past, like "I know what you went through" or "you have to move on".

She was drawing the poisons of guilt and sorrow out of him and to herself. He tried to stop her as soon as he realized what she was doing. No one, especially not this child, should have to bear the pain he had.

But she stopped him, as though pushing his hands out of the way, telling him it was all right—the poison could not hurt her.

Innocence of childhood and compassion of womanhood, melded in that moment in perfect harmony.

O'Neill opened his eyes, and stood up, holding Mairghread in his arms.

"Okay, meetin's over," he said with a mischievous grin. "Time for lunch. Hope they have jello," he told Mairghread as he walked out, ignoring Woolsey's protests. "Those so-called cooks on the Daedelus couldn't make jello to save their lives."

"We have the green kind and the blue kind and the red cherry kind today, Grandpa!" she told him happily and incidentally incorporating him into her ever-growing family.

"Goodie! My favorite!" replied the dully dubbed "Grandpa" O'Neill.

"Which one, silly? Green or red or blue?"

"Yes!"

**TBC**

Next: Woolsey's Worries


	18. Woolsey's Worries

**Woolsey's Worries**

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A/N: Dedicated to all those poor poor souls for whom the sufferance of another year in highschool is over, and another year looms ahead. Also, as I write, there are over 3,100 hits on this story. Thank you so much for your continued support and reviews.

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"General O'Neill, I cannot stress strongly enough the misgivings I have about allowing this…child…to have free reign of Atlantis, which, may I remind you, is one of the most vital pieces of homeworld security!" expostulated Woolsey, who was clearly becoming frustrated with the entire situation and everyone's attitudes.

"Aw, cummon Woolsey! She doesn't have 'free reign'! If you have haven't noticed from the security footage, there's _always_, and need I repeat, ALWAYS a minimum of two special forces marines dogging her steps!" groaned General O'Neill, who was becoming equally frustrated and irritated with Woolsey's constant nay-saying, bureaucratic nonsense and insistence that Mairghread was sent by a wraith queen to infiltrate, brainwash and take over Atlantis as part of a larger scheme to attack earth. Again.

Woolsey scoffed. "And what good are they?! General, have you _seen_ how everyone acts around her?! Clearly, she's already begun to brainwash them! A _typical_ wraith tactic!"

"She hasn't brainwashed them! At least," he modified, "Not in a wraith way."

Woolsey simply stared at him as though he had lost his marbles.

"Woolsey," inquired Jack in his best, slightly patronizing, man-of-the-world-asks-naïve-underling way, "How many six-year-olds have you been around?"

'I-I, uh, well, none," admitted Woolsey after some stuttering and trying to see where this is going.

"Ah," said O'Neill, holding up a finger in his now-we're-getting-somewhere-with-this-block-head manner. "She hasn't brainwashed them because she's a wraith. She's got them acting like this because she's a six-year-old!"

"Pft!" said Woolsey in derision. "General, I hardly think—"

"That's absolutely correct Woolsey! You _do_ hardly think!" shouted O'Neill with sarcastic glee. "If you had ever spent more than two seconds around a HUMAN six-year-old, you'd know that they get people to act _exactly_ like this due to a highly evolved, subconscious survival brainwashing technique!"

The bureaucrat gave him a blank look, and then a look that clearly stated 'I think you have had one head injury too many'.

"Six-year-olds are like dogs," continued Jack in his wise-man-explaining-to-a-stupid-younger-man way, "They brainwash everyone they come into contact with as a survival method. Why else would we put up with them?"

"General O'Neill," a fed-up Woolsey began in his bureaucratic patronizing way before O'Neill cut him off with a wave of his hand.

"It's a moot point, Woolsey," he said, cutting the younger, yet bald, man off. "Move on. _Please_."

"Fine. Her increased telepathic abilities make her a threat to the entire program. She could easily manipulate the entire expedition into doing whatever she wanted."

"That's your clincher?" scoffed O'Neill incredudously. "She's telepathic? God, am I glad you weren't around when I had the ancient database in my brain and started building things without knowing what the hell I was doing."

"No," countered Woolsey, "The 'clincher' is she's a wraith."

"Now _that_," said Jack, his anger growing by the second, "is blatant, out right _racism_."

"General O'Neill, I have yet to be shown _one_ trust-worthy wraith."

"If all you knew of the Germans were SS officers, of course you wouldn't have found one trust-worthy or compassionate German! If all you knew of the US was its bureaucrats, you'd think we deserved to be wiped off the face of the earth for being self-righteous ass-holes!"

"General O'Neill, you have _clearly_ been biased in favor of her because of her mentioning your son."

Jack's jaw became hard and set. Woolsey had gone too far.

"Woolsey, that has _nothing_ to do with the security _non-threat_ Ma…Mair..Mary poses to this base!"

"All I'm saying is, General, clearly she brought up your son to manipulate you, and now any opinion you offer must be considered tainted," Woolsey argued.

"Woolsey, shut up," O'Neill ordered the bureaucrat. "I could forth an _equally_ convincing argument that _your_ bias taints _your _opinion."

Woolsey laughed breathlessly. "_My_ bias?!"

"Yes, _your_ bias," O'Neill repeated as he got up from his chair and headed for the door. "So shut up, and write that report _without_ all your damn racism, or I'll talk to my friends in the IOA and have you brought up before the ethics committee."

**TBC **

Next: Woolsey's Waterloo**  
**


	19. Woolsey's Waterloo

**Woolsey's Waterloo**

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Mairghread sat on the floor of the living room, playing with the rag doll Rodney had given her for her first birthday while Mommy, Daddy, Uncles John, Rodney and Carson and Auntie Elizabeth talked with Grandpa O'Neill.

"I've talked Woolsey into recommending only that someone should pop out here every now and then to keep an eye on things and all security footage should be forwarded to earth," finished O'Neill.

"So, Woolsey's not going to make trouble? No execution orders? No brig-for-a-bedroom?" asked Sheppard incredulously as he and the other's shared a bottle of very old, very good whiskey O'Neill had brought with him and broken out to celebrate "Woolsey's Waterloo".

"Nope," replied Jack, leaning back and grinning. "His report will be glowingly approving of this whole…thing," he finished lamely.

"I wonder why," mused Weir, leaning forward in her best tell-me-now-or-else-school-marm way.

"I should think the fact that I threatened to bring him up before the ethics committee had something to do with it," quipped the general casually as he refilled his glass.

"Ethics committee?" snorted McKay. "Not torture? Sudden, painful death?"

"Ah," said O'Neill sagely. "There is nothing like an ethics committee to scare a bureaucrat."

"What would he have to worry about?" wondered Sheppard.

Jack snorted into his whiskey. "A lot actually," he told them. "You should hear the things he said when we were 'deliberating'. Most of what he said could be taken in a _very_ bad way by an international council," he said with a smile.

"You're not serious," scoffed Mckay. "He's absurdly PC."

"Only when he knows that what he says is public record," countered O'Neill. "Fortunately, where I stay is always bugged, supposedly for my own good," he waved his hand dismissively. "And believe it or not, I actually have some friends on the council.

"Besides," he said, putting his glass down and scooping Mairghread into his lap. "My threat assessment counts for more than his, and I find his arguments that this pumpkin is a threat to intergalactic security wholly unconvincing," he turned Mairghread to look at him. "You don't have any plans to take over the galaxy, right Mary?"

Mairghread shook her head. Galactic domination was a silly thing.

Grandpa had shortened her name (because it was long and funny to pronounce), but she didn't mind once the adults had explained 'nick names' to her.

Nick names are generally one or two syllable contractions of full names for the purpose of brevity and are often used to indicate familiarity with a person. "Nick" is an example of a nick name, being short for Nicholas.

"Pumpkin?" inquired Teyla. She had become used to many terms of endearment used among the expedition, but she was unfamiliar with this one. And if she recalled correctly, a pumpkin was a large orange squash they liked to turn into a pie.

"Yeah, it's like 'honey', 'dear', 'sweetheart'," explained Sheppard. "Like Carson always calls her 'chuisle' and 'cadsearc'."

"Oh."

Dang, ding, dang, dong. Dong, dang, ding, dang. Dang dong dang dong. Dong dang ding dang. Bong. Bong. Bong. Bong. Bong. Bong. Bong. Bong. Bong. Bong.

Carson's laptop (brought along with no particular purpose in mind), rang out the Westminster Chimes and sounded ten o'clock.

"Carson, why did you install a grandfather clock on your computer?" asked Sheppard, shocked.

"Ah couldn't vera weel bring a real chiming clock here, could Ah?" asked the Scotsman. "Bloody hell, with all the things ye do tae this city, it'd nae'r survive!"

"More importantly, an earth clock would only have 24 hours on it," commented McKay as he looked at the laptop in question. "Carson's had it modified to have 30."

"Whatever," interjected Jack, who stood up, a holding a yawning Mairghread. "Time for bed," he told her.

She stuck out her lower lip and pouted. "Don't wanna."

"Tha thu sgìth," Carson said to her as she yawned again. "Cuiridh sinn ort an gùn-oidhche."

Teyla quietly translated for everyone else, "Carson has told her, loosely, you are tired, lets get you ready for bed."

"How'd you learn to speak that sheepshearer gobbled-gook?" demanded McKay.

Teyla dipped her head. "Dr. Beckett has been most kind in helping to establish a routine with Mairghread. And she seems more…comfortable…when she is spoken to in his language."

She took Mairghread from Jack's arms.

"Say goodnight and thank you," she directed the child.

"'night and thank you," said Mairghread around a yawn as Teyla carried her into her bedroom.

"Hey, Ronon, did you guys reorganize this place? I just realized there aren't any beds here anymore," observed Sheppard as they sat down again to finish their drinks.

"Yeah. Made this the livin' room, used the other three as bedrooms," Ronon replied.

"Still separate beds, eh Chewie?" asked Rodney snidely.

Ronon gave him the death-glare, and McKay promptly wiped the smirk off his face.

"Sir—" started Sheppard.

Jack held up his hand. "Say no more, Colonel. It's not my job, I don't want to know."

"Yes sir."

"Now," said the general. "Who's gonna help me finish this bottle of _excellent_ Irish whiskey?"

**TBC**

Next: Growing Pains

**A/N: **I _think_ I remember them saying somewhere that Atlantis has a 30 hour day. Can someone verify or correct me?


	20. Growing Pains

**Growing Pains **

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Cainwen: It was mentioned by a reviewer that in _Gift_, it was said that wraith can't read human minds. I say Mairghread can because 1) She's of the older generations of wraith—their powers were greater(lack of inbreeding maybe?) 2) She has heightened powers from her mother (see "A Mother's Love") Enjoy, And pretty please _**REVIEW!!!**_

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For simplicity's sake, when entire conversations are in Gaelic and everyone involved understands, I'll put it like this /talk talk talk/.

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Mairghread sat suddenly on the floor next to her bed. Fortunately, she mused, all the nice, thick area rugs found for her as an infant worked equally well for her as a seven/eight-year-old.

Unfortunately, growing up at a vastly accelerated pace had its draw backs, one of which was really bad growing pains.

_Really_ bad growing pains, she thought ruefully as she rubbed her knees, hoping they would stop spasming and aching long enough for her to get dressed and go to breakfast.

Her older and younger halves had come to a truce of sorts—the older half could speak and control some actions, so long as the younger half remained largely in control of emotions and actions.

In this they were in agreement—go see Uncle Carson after breakfast and ask if he had something stronger than Tylenol.

With a heavy sigh, she hauled herself off the floor using her bed as leverage and began rifling through the small-yet-growing pile of clothes at the foot of her bed for something to wear.

Settling on a pair of brown pants of the same material as her father's and a pretty pink tunic top, Mairghread ran a hairbrush through her fine, raven locks and frowned at her facial slits before walking gingerly to the kitchen in their apartment.

"Good morning," Mommy greeted her daughter sweetly as she helped Ronon lay out a breakfast of oatmeal and fruit salad. They had reached a compromise on this point—breakfast alternated between grain and fruit and meat. Dinner was easier, while lunch was still somewhat contentious.

"Madainn mhath," she replied distractedly as she clambered up onto a chair that was still a little too tall for her. For all her growing pains, she remained frustratingly petite.

"English, please Mairghread," Teyla reminded her gently.

"Sorry." When she was distracted or in a bad mood, she often slipped into her heart's tongue—the language of her father and mother, which had a startling resemblance to Scots Gaelic.

Ronon studied his daughter for a moment. "What's up?"

"Nothin'."

Ronon and Teyla shared a look. Both knew that their daughter's answer had as much truth as the statement "Rodney McKay has the IQ of a grape seed and the body of a purple Adonis". They also knew that prying would do no good.

"Daddy and I are going off-world today, you remember," said Teyla conversationally as she sat down to eat. "You will go and do your lessons in Uncle Carson's office this morning, and play in Dr. Mary's office in the afternoon."

"'kay," she replied, half-heartedly spooning oatmeal into her mouth. After working so hard to cut her teeth, now they were loose. She had lost her two bottom front incisors, and her top two were about to fall out as well, and it made eating rather difficult.

When breakfast was over, Mairghread gathered up the workbooks she had been given to help her learn about the earth alphabets, numbers systems, histories and religions.

"Come back safe, okay?" she half-begged Teyla and Ronon as they dropped her off in the infirmary with Carson.

"We shall," Teyla reassured her as she and Ronon kissed and hugged their daughter goodbye for the day.

When they were gone, Mairghread curled up in her corner of Uncle Carson's office to do her two pages of mathematics. One advantage of being small, she realized, was that she needed only about six square feet to work comfortably, and she preferred not to sit at a desk, but to curl up in a cozy corner on the floor, which meant she fit almost anywhere.

She had only gotten ten problems done when a painful spasm wrapped itself around her chest and she was forced to drop her pencil and paper to curl up into herself and pray to the Spirits for it to pass quickly. She _hated_ growing pains.

"/Mairghread? What's wrong love?/" asked Beckett, looking up from his mountain of paperwork from their last encounter with Lucius and peering over the edge of his desk to see his young charge.

Bother, she thought. I didn't _think_ I made a sound.

Carson got up and moved to kneel down in front of the little girl, still curled protectively around her ribs.

"/Growing pains again?/" he asked sympathetically, and she nodded morosely. "/Well, let's have a look at you anyway./" he said, holding out his arms for her.

He set her on one of the exam tables and pulled out his stethoscope while Nurse Rodgers stood by to take notes. It had all become a familiar routine—every week or two she had a full physical to make sure she was healthy.

Mairghread pulled off her shirt and sat shivering until Uncle Carson draped a blanket over her shoulders.

Beckett clicked his tongue when he noticed large, dry, chapped patches of skin all over the little girl's body.

"/You've been forgetting to cream yourself at night, aren't you?/" he asked admonishingly. She ducked her head. It wasn't so much that she had forgotten as much as she had been too tired the past few nights. She knew she should have—the air in Atlantis was so dry, and since the city keyed into human biological preferences and especially to those with the ATA gene, she was climatically left out in the cold…er, heat. The city was both a lot too dry, and a little too warm for her. Humans liked their rooms to be about 70⁰ Fahrenheit and less than 40 humidity—she would have preferred 60⁰ and 80 humidity, like it would be in a hive.

"Kathy, be a luv and fetch the Lotil," Beckett asked as he listened to Mairghread's heart. It was fortunate, he mused, that he had heard a wraith heart before she came, or he would have been worried. Wraith hearts were rather different from human hearts structurally, and they sounded markedly different when working properly.

Her lungs sounded a bit congested, but it was probably nothing more than that Athosian chest cold that was going around.

Her ribs were tender, as were her knees and every other part of her—probably just growing pains.

She had grown another 3 inches in the past day, bringing her to a full 4 feet tall, so it wouldn't be too surprising. She was, however, still only about 40 pounds. Beckett made a note to increase her caloric intake—growing fast had definite drawbacks.

But her sore joints did give Beckett pause the more he thought about it. A whole list formed itself in his mind of things that could cause it—lupus, juvenile rheumatoid arthritis, infection, cancers…

"/Mairghread, love, I want to take some blood and run a few scans, alright?/"

She drew her knees to her chest and whimpered. Something in his voice made her even scareder than she was at the thought of blood work and noisy scans. She wanted her daddy.

Uncle Carson cupped her face in his hand and stroked her cheek with his thumb in a comforting gesture. She grabbed onto his hand and held it to her face, breathing deep his scent, finding security and reassurance in the earthy, clean, rainy smell.

"It'll be all right, luv."

But there was no surety in his words.

TBC

Hehe! Evil cliffie! Review! Or I'll leave you hanging for…a long time!

Next: Solace on Sunday


	21. Solace on Sunday

**Solace on Sunday**

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A/N: Hehe! Got ya! This Sunday has absolutely nothing to do with the episode "Sunday". Now, PLEASE REVIEW!!!

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Mairghread grit her teeth as the MRI kicked into gear. Even with 40-decibel-rated earplugs, the machine was painfully loud to her—it was as though someone were trying to drill through her skull. 

The machine was uncomfortably warm. She liked the closeness of the MRI tube, but it was too hot. Between the heat, the noise and the isotope injection they had given her, she was feeling rather sick to her stomach.

"Uncle Carson," she whimpered as her breakfast rose in her throat and threatened to make reappearance.

"Dammit!" she heard him mutter as she was slid out of the machine in time to vomit into a waiting trashcan. "Sorry luv, I forgot the MRI bothers you so much."

"'s okay," she whispered hoarsely as she spat into the wastebasket. "/Just don't feel so good./"

"Bloody hell," the Scotsman muttered as he noticed for the first time her face was flushed and a sheen of sweat covered her. He felt her forehead and cursed when he felt the burning heat.

"Kathy! Bring me a thermometer and some ibuprofen!"

"/'s matter?/"

"/You've got a bit of a fever, love, that's all,/" he answered as he took her temperature, and found it several degrees too high. "Bloody hell. /Mairghread? I'm going to need to use the scanner./"

Mairghread whimpered and tried to hide under the blanket. She _hated_ the scanner. To the humans, it was pleasant, just a soft humming, unnoticeable light beams. But it seemed to know she was wraith, and it hated her. It made her insides burn, it screamed in her ears.

Beckett picked her up gently and carried her over to a bed. "/No worries. I'll give you something to make you sleep. You won't even know it's happening./"

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

"Mairghread!" Ronon burst into the infirmary like a nor'easter hits Maine. "Where is she, Doc?"

"Over here," called Beckett tiredly. What had started as a nice, quiet morning to do paper work in had deteriorated rapidly. Scans had shown signs of a massive and virulent infection in the wraithling's body, as well as signs of an auto-immune disease. But it was difficult to treat the latter—ibuprofen wasn't working well enough to reduce the inflammation, which Beckett was worried would spread to her internal organs, but regular steroids would suppress her ability to fight the infection. And it was becoming painfully apparent that her accelerated growth was making matters infinitely worse.

"What's wrong with her?!" the former Runner demanded.

"Ronon," said Teyla quietly, as she appeared at his side. "Please remain calm."

Ronon huffed, and then walked over to stand by his daughter while Beckett explained his finds to Teyla.

She looked so tiny, Ronon mused. He knew she was small, especially compared to him, but lying on the infirmary bed in a too-large scrub top, with wires and tubes running in and out of the blankets, her hair stringy with sweat, she seemed doubly small and fragile.

"How'd this happen?" he growled to anyone who would answer. Beckett sighed and Dr. Biro, who had come by to lend a hand as things went downhill, stepped in to explain.

"It seems that one of the labs they were exploring a few days ago contained a few broken test tubes that held samples of a prototype biological weapon against the wraith, which is why the city didn't immediately go into lockdown—it's not a threat to humans. But it got distributed through the ventilation system, probably, and Mairghread picked it up," she said. "It's actually a very strange disease—it's neither virus, bacteria nor fungus, but rather a combination of all three. And it provokes an autoimmune response within the body. Instead of attacking only the infection, the body attacks both the microbes and itself."

Ronon stared at Dr. Beckett, waiting for a translation of what the tiny pathologist had told him.

"It's touch and go, lad," he replied. "We're doin' all we can. We're tryin' to cum up with something to help her fight it, and we have her on broad spectrum antibiotics and antivirals and the strongest NSAIDs we have."

"Ronon!" shouted Sheppard as he ran into the infirmary. "Just heard. How's she doing?"

"Not well, John," Teyla said when Ronon didn't answer, instead sitting on the edge of his daughter's bed and bathing her face in cool water.

Ronon couldn't let her die. He wouldn't. Whatever it took.

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

The next morning, she was no better. None of the drugs they were giving her were having any effect. Her fever continued to rise, barely abated by drugs and ice packs. She was being given oxygen because her lungs were inflamed. She drifted in and out of consciousness, crying and moaning. Her joints were swollen, hot and immobile.

Her head rolled from side to side in a terribly unnatural fashion. Sheppard supposed it was the closest she could come to tossing and turning with fever.

"Daddy?" she moaned as only an eight-year-old can—the kind of sound that exactly dissects your heart, fillets it, sears it, and serves it with garden-fresh peas and a nice Pinot Noir. "Fuachd."

Ronon squeezed her hand gently and looked to Beckett, who was checking her vitals, for a translation. The higher her fever rose, the harder a time she seemed to have speaking English and the more she used Gaelic.

"Fuachd. Cold," muttered Beckett as he listened to her lungs.

"Plaide?" she asked, staring glassy-eyed at Scotsman.

He shook his head. "Nae lass, Ah cannae gi'e ye a blanket. You're fever's too high."

"Fuachd, robh teth."

"Ah ken tha' ye dunnae feel hot, lass," Beckett told her sadly.

"I always hated being sick on a Saturday," announced Sheppard out of the blue as he leaned on the foot of her bed. "Didn't miss school, couldn't play…"

Beckett cast him a weary "why are you doing this to me?" look before turning back to marking Mairghread's chart. "Try and keep her cool," he murmured to the nurse standing by. "Let me know if anythin' changes."

"Where's McKay?" asked Sheppard, rather too loudly for Mairghread's liking. She whimpered and buried her head against Ronon's hand, which brushing wayward, sweat-soaked hair out of her face before it could become entangled in the oxygen mask.

"I believe he went to his lab to 'see what those idiotic, self-righteous, half-cocked Ancients were doing when they voodoo-ed this sorry attempt at a biological weapon'," quoted Teyla as she wrung out a cloth to lay on Mairghread's forehead.

"Oh."

The hours passed too slowly for all concerned. Lunch and dinner came and went. Night crept over the city, but it brought no rest to the infirmary. Beckett's chiming laptop brought stark reminders of the time as midnight edged ever closer and Mairghread grew ever more restless and her fever ever higher.

"Goirtich!" screamed Mairghread suddenly and thrashed stiffly amidst the tangle of wires, IVs and catheters. That word, heard sufficiently over the past day and a half, needed no translation at this point for anyone. "Hurts!" is made clear by tone alone.

"Get Beckett!" shouted Ronon to the nurses on the graveyard shift as he tried to hold his daughter down without hurting her further.

"Bloody hell! Ali! Ice bath!" yelled Beckett as he came over and monitors began to scream around him. "Keech" he muttered as he glanced at the numbers flashing on the dark screen. "Ronon, help me get her over here," he told the Satedan. "Watch it now!"

Beckett unhooked her from the wires (water and electricity being a very unhealthy mix) and took care of the tubing as Ronon carried the wraithling over to the small room to the side, where a bathtub stood in the middle already half-filled with ice and water.

"Let's get her in there. Aye, tha's it," Carson muttered as the tiny, stiff body was lowered into the Atlantis infirmary's lovely recreation of the seas around the northern pole.

"Chan eil! Sguir! Chan eil!" she screamed over and over, even as Beckett murmured his apologize tried to sooth the little girl, who in her delirium seemed unable to understand what was happening.

"Geez, Carson what are you doing?" shouted McKay as he burst into the room. "Enough of your voodoo! I've found a cure!"

**TBC**

Next: Cake or Casket?

Translations:

Fuachd--cold

robh teth--not hot

plaide--blanket

Goirtich-- hurt, pain

keech-- s--- in Lowland Scots slang


	22. Cake or Casket?

**Cake or Casket?**

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A/N: Do I have to beg you for reviews? Please, please review!

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"Go on!" shouted Beckett when Rodney paused for dramatic effect. Honestly, you'd think the man took acting classes specifically designed to build tension!

"Well, the ancients were obviously developing this with the idea of introducing it into a wraith ship air supply and killing off the whole ship that way. But they ran into a snag—it spread _wonderfully_ in Atlantis conditions. But _it wouldn't spread in a hive!" _Rodney paused and looked around.

"Chan eil! Chan eil!" Mairghread screamed again, and Rodney glared. How dare she break into his explanation.

"McKay…" Ronon growled dangerously. This was, after all, _his_ little girl who was stiff as the proverbial board and burning with fever.

"Right. Anyway, turns out that the virus or whatever can't stand a high pressure, high oxygen, low ambient temperature atmosphere, but here's the important point—it dies _even once it has infected something_ if it's exposed to these conditions. Which is probably—"

"Thank you Rodney!" Beckett cut in. He turned to the nurse. "Ali, set up the hyperbaric chamber, will ye luv? And make sure the air conditioner is working for it."

She scuttled off to make all the preparations while Ronon carefully lifted Mairghread out of the ice water at the bidding of the good doctor and lay her on a gurney. She was quickly dried and put into a too large hospital gown, and whisked to the stainless steel tank that offered her only hope of survival.

Set on the narrow bed inside the chamber, monitor leads hooked up to the ports in the walls that fed data to screens on the outside, new IV bags hooked up and covered with a thin blanket, Mairghread was sealed inside and the pressure slowly began to rise with added oxygen as the temperature dropped.

Mairghread's lips moved, but through the thick metal walls of the tank, Beckett and her family on the outside couldn't hear what she said. Beckett locked the intercom open.

"It's alright, luv," he told her.

"Fuachd," she moaned. "Càit' a bheil Dadaidh?"

"Ah know ye're cauld, luv," said Beckett as he slid the stool he was sitting on aside and beckoned Ronon over to the small observation window. "Here's Daddy. Talk to her, lad," he instructed Ronon. "Keep her grounded."

The Satedan nodded and crouched down in front of the pane of glass. "Hey baby."

"Daddy? A'seinn?"

"She wants ye tae sing," Beckett whispered his translation.

Ronon nodded, and began to rumble a Satedan lullaby, his deep bass voice clearly calming the child.

John pulled Beckett outside the room and asked quietly, "Doc, give it to me straight—what're her odds?"

Carson rubbed his eyes with one hand. He never liked giving odds, especially in the Pegasus galaxy, where most laws of statistics seemed not to apply.

"Ah dunnae know, lad," he replied. "If we cannae bring her fever down by…dawn…," he looked away, clearly unable or unwilling to say what was written on his face. "And e'en if we can, her body's done a pretty job on her joints…. Ah cannae say for sure if…" he trailed off again, but his body language conveyed his worries even better. For once, Sheppard wished that they hadn't developed such a very explicit body language.

"I'm just worried about," John jerked his head in the direction of Ronon. Ronon on a bad day, annoyed by marines or frustrated by an unreachable enemy was bad enough. A Ronon who was mourning his child? It didn't bear thinking about.

The night passed in a similar manner to the leftovers from cane sugar processing in subfreezing temperatures. Teyla relieved Ronon when his voice became hoarse, singing Athosians lullabies. When around 4 am Beckett ordered the two of them to eat the light meal he had brought, because they hadn't eaten since the morning before, John took a turn and sang Billy Joel's "Goodnight My Angel" and revealed himself to be an excellent singer in hiding.

At last, as Beckett's laptop chimed out 5:30 am, the machine monitoring her temperature beeped once. Twice. Beckett looked at it and a grin spread across his face that threatened to crack it in two.

"The fever's broken!" he told them ecstatically. "Rodney, ye did it!"

"Of course I did!" snorted the Canadian, looking mightily pleased with himself.

"When can she come out doc?" John asked the question on everyone's mind.

"Ah'd like tae keep her in there at least for today," Beckett said. "And then a few hours for the next couple days till it clears her system."

Sheppard pulled Carson aside again. "What about…?" he flexed his elbow meaningfully.

"Ah cannae say yet. She may be fine, she may…." He trailed off and his eyes involuntarily twitched over to a wheelchair.

"That's not gonna happen, doc," said Sheppard sternly. Beckett knew that look—it was the look that dared the sun to rise if Sheppard said it wouldn't for another hour.

"Ah hope tae God ye're right, lad," the Scotsman replied wearily. "And tha's about all we can do for now."

TBC

Next: Physical Therapy

A/N: please click on the nice purple button! Please:)


	23. Physical Therapy

**Physical Therapy**

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Dedicated to everyone who has ever had to suffer through legalized torture (ie physical therapy) and to those people who put us through it, got us through it, and sent us on our way the better for it, the physical therapists.

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"Tha mi gu math, an trath-sa?" asked Mairghread tentatively as she was brought out of the hyperbaric chamber late that evening. "Mò goirtich?" 

"Ah hope so, luv," Beckett told her. "Ah hope you're alright now."

Ronon and Teyla took over from the nurses help to settle her on a regular bed and cover her with several light blankets. Now that her fever was gone they could afford to protect her from the air-conditioning induced chill of the infirmary.

"Can ye move yer fingers for me, lass?" Carson asked her gently.

Mairghread tried. She honestly did. But her stubborn digits simply wouldn't move. Not even a twitch. It felt like someone had stolen her fingers and replaced them with sticks—straight, stiff, immobile and useless.

"Chan urrainn!" she whimpered, all of a sudden terrified. Why wouldn't her fingers move?

"Let me see," Carson murmured soothingly, trying not to notice the death glare of Ronon and the worried look of Teyla. He was certain that she _could_ move her fingers. It was just possible that the infection had temporarily disrupted her lines of communication. He took a hold of her hand and gently tried to bend her fingers.

"Sguir! Sguir! Goirtich is mi!" she screamed. Fire raced through her hand and up her arm. Bone was splintered, stabbing flesh.

The doctor immediately stopped, and set the tiny blue hand back onto the bed. Her finger joints were locked.

"Ah'm sorry, Mairghread, but Ah need tae see if there's damage. Tell me if it hurts ye," he said apologetically. Ronon looked like he was about to intercede, but Beckett gave him his own warning look, the one that everyone knew to mean "I have an intimate understanding of humanoid physiology and am not afraid to use it against you if you interrupt my care of this patient".

He methodically went through mentally noting which joints were affected and which weren't even as the wraithling's sobs rang through the infirmary and Ronon's growls grew louder and more fearsome. Elbows, yes. Shoulders, no. Hips, no. Knees, yes. Toes, yes. Wrists and Ankles? Yes.

Every kind of joint except the enarthrosis and cartilaginous joints was as immovable as if it had been carved out of marble. No swelling, but no movement.

Damn those Ancients for being incompetent, lazy…

Beckett cut off this train of thought before it could start pulling up language he had spent years trying to bury after leaving medical school in Glasgow.

Why?

Her blood work was clean—no sign of the wee beasties. Cultures clean as a whistle. The inflammation was gone, as were the autoimmune symptoms.

So why were all but her shoulder, hip and spinal joints frozen in place?

"Go to sleep, luv," he told Mairghread, tousling her hair affectionately and wiping the few tears from her face. "Best medicine."

The next morning found Dr. Beckett, Maighread, Ronon and Teyla taking the short journey from the infirmary proper to the physical therapy suites. Beckett had concluded, with the help of a handheld scanner, that there was no actual damage to nerve, joint or muscle. The muscles were just very very stiff, causing the joints to be locked in place. It seemed a cruel trick of fate that she should survive by the skin of her teeth, only to wake up to limbs that may as well have been set in plaster for all the good they were.

They were greeted by Pétur Fjalarsson, the chief physical therapist, and alternatingly most-hated and best-liked man in Atlantis. Most-hated by anyone in physical therapy, best-liked by anyone he had helped get back to one hundred percent.

Carson had explained to the Icelandic everything that had happened and how Mairghread's extremities were frozen in place better than if they had been dipped in liquid nitrogen (not in those words of course).

"Hello Mairghread," he said, "Did Dr. Beckett explain that I'm going to help you play again?"

She nodded tentatively. She had a bad feeling she wasn't really going to like his help.

"Don't be afraid," he told her as he pushed her gurney into a room with several either large tubs or small pools, depending on how you looked at them.

It was Mairghread's experience that when someone had to say "don't be afraid", there was usually reason to be afraid. Very afraid.

Pétur laughed a nice laugh, clearly reading her thoughts, as the gurney came to a stop beside an empty pool.

"Do you know what this is?" he asked Mairghread, and for the first time she noticed how he spoke with a slight sibilance. She nodded.

"It's a big bathtub."

He laughed again. "Yes, I suppose it is. Well, Mairghread, what we're going to do is, Mommy and nurse Kathy over there are going to help you put on a bathing suit and we're going to see if the warm water can't help you move again."

It was a very strange feeling, she mused as she floated supported by Ronon's strong hands, floating with arms and legs like stone.

It had become immediately apparent that Mairghread was not terribly buoyant—she was skin, muscle and bone—and since Fjalarsson would need his hands to massage her stiff muscles while she was in the water, Ronon had removed his boots and climbed in to help his non-bobbing daughter stay afloat.

Working as gently as he could, Pétur took her arm in his hands and began to knead the muscles slowly and shallowly at first, getting harder and deeper as he went and the tension eased, like a taut catgut fiddle string soaked in coffee.

Mairghread whimpered as the man's deft fingers dug and prodded and chivied her elbow to bend. Daddy held her, his presence giving her strength. She could feel his blood pulse through his body in his hands; feel the tiny ripples he made in the water as he breathed. They calmed her, like his singing had when she had had the fever and been in the tank…

"Ah!" said Pétur.

"Aie!" said Mairghread.

"I liked being straight!" thought her elbow as it at last gave and bent halfway.

"There," muttered the therapist as he slowly worked the arm back and forth, increasing the movement each time. "One down."

Mairghread was sorely tempted to stick out her tongue at him or use some language she had picked up from the marines when they were playing poker while she played with a ball in the gym.

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

"Well, I'd say you're nearly as flexible as a contortionist," Pétur pronounced three days and many agonizing hours later as Mairghread went through her paces for him, going so far as to put her foot behind her head to prove her point—she was better.

She tilted her head to the side, confused. "Contortionist?"

TBC

Next: Dangerous Changes


	24. Dangerous Changes

**Dangerous Changes**

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**Warning**: contains semi-graphic descriptions of a early pubescent female body and the changes inherent thereto. If you don't like it, skip this, will include brief recap in next chapter.

A/N: I know this chapter is short. But I'm on vacation, so provided I get reviews and the wireless I'm using holds up, I should be posting every day or so. Enjoy and Review!

* * *

The clock on her nightstand said 4 am.

So why was she awake?

Admittedly, she was an early riser. Five thirty or six, she usually got up to say her morning prayers, light a candle for Mom and Dad's safety that day. Some days she ran with Dad, other days she practiced with Mom, though most days now she made breakfast, since she was nine- or ten-years-old and therefore could be trusted with a toaster and precut fruit.

But four was a little too early.

Twin aches joined by sharp, needling pains in her chest make a rude for a rude awakening, she thought ruefully as she began to massage her sore breasts, then stopped suddenly.

Oh no, she thought in a panic. Please no! she jumped out of bed and ran over to the mirror, pulling off her pajama top in desperate haste.

Never before had such an unwelcome sight met her eyes staring back at her in a mirror.

Where yesterday stood a flat-chested child, today stood a girl with breasts already grown to the size of apricots.

She looked at her hand in terror—already, what had yesterday been a dark spot on her palm was deepening into a pit that would soon be a feeding slit.

Mairghread burst into tears. What should have been a time for rejoicing, her first step towards womanhood, was instead for her a time of terrible distress. She knew that with puberty came the hunger. The hunger that wouldn't be satisfied by bread, only life energies.

She would kill herself before she let that happen.

Uncle Carson. Maybe he could help. Maybe he could stop this from happening. Maybe he could make her like Peter Pan from the story Uncle John and Uncle Rodney told her, never growing up.

Mairghread pulled on a loose dress and quietly slipped from her room. Mom and Dad might be asleep, or they might be out, or they might be talking—one never knew.

The livingroom was clear, so she slipped out the "front" door.

Sgt. Lukinov and Lt. Johnson were on the graveyard shift guard duty that morning. They were sitting outside the door, quietly debating the relative virtues of desert and deciduous forest planets.

Mairghread gave them a brief nod of greeting as she passed. She knew they were there and why, but she didn't particularly mind. Before Uncle Rodney had fixed the manual controls of the transporters, she had needed them in order to move across the city. They didn't bother her, she listened if they told her she couldn't do something—it was a pleasant coexistence.

"Mornin' Mary," Lt. Johnson said as they fell into step with her. "Sleep well?"

She shrugged. "Okay, I guess. How was the shift?"

"So far, so good," Lukinov replied in his thick Russian accent. "Vair are you go-ink?"

"See Uncle Carson," she told him tersely. Usually, she could enjoy a pleasant conversation, but this morning her mind was on other things, like the fear that at any moment she would feel the hunger and her companions would suddenly seem more like comestibles.

The marines nodded and followed silently. This was not an unusual occurrence. Mairghread was often up and about shortly before their shift ended, and her morning "rounds", as they were known, frequently included going to see the good CMO who, more often than not, had stayed up all night on something and hadn't eaten recently. The little girl seemed to think it her duty to make sure the sleepless Scotsman went to bed for at least a few hours and ate something more than powerbars and caffeinated brews.

Not that this was much of a problem. It meant that they actually got to stretch their legs and wander closer to home all in the line of duty.

It was an added bonus that Mairghread could sweet-talk the cooks into giving her _real_ food for herself, Carson, and anyone she was with.

Mairghread knocked tentatively on the door frame to Beckett's office.

"Uncle Carson?" she inquired softly, trying not to make the man jump as he sat staring at his laptop.

He did anyway.

"Mairghread!" he gasped. "Ye gave me quiet a fright, lass."

"Sorry. Um, Uncle Carson…"

Beckett could see immediately that something was bothering her, but probably not in the "I have a headache way". She was like everyone else on the bloody base—never said anything about being hurt till someone caught them and dragged them to the infirmary.

"What is it luv? Tell me," he took her hand, led her to an empty bed and closed the curtain around them for privacy.

In answer, Mairghread pulled her thin dress taught over her chest, making her developing bosom noticeable.

"Make it stop. Please," she begged, clearly terrified by her changing body.

"Mairghread, it's pairfectly normal. There's nothing wrong—" Beckett began in the voice he normally employed the first time explaining to Rodney that a splinter, even a splinter from a ten thousand year old piece of dead wood, was non-life-threatening.

"Yes there is!" she interrupted and stuck her hand out in front of her, palm up.

"Ah," said the good doctor, realizing her concern.

"I, I can't let this happen!" Mairghread whispered, on the verge of tears. "I won't! I won't let the hunger…"

"Hush lass," Carson soothed and pulled her into a hug as she cried. "There's nae need for tha'"

"Yes there is!" she cried despondently. "I-I-I don't want to hurt anyone! Please, make it stop!"

"Ah cannae do tha', luv…"

"Then I'll go ask Aunt Elizabeth to lock me in the brig before the hunger comes."

"Nae, nae, no need for tha' yet!" he told her. "Ah cannae stop ye growing, but Ah think I can keep ye among us safely."

Mairghread furiously scrubbed at her tears with a fist. "How?"

TBC

Next: Retrovirus, 4.0

Haha! more cliffhangers! Now, press the little purple button please!


	25. Retrovirus 40

**Retrovirus 4.0**

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**A/N:** I know these chapters have been short, but I promise that the next couple will be much longer. Enjoy!

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"I-I can't let this happen!" Mairghread whispered, on the verge of tears. "I won't! I won't let the hunger…" 

"Hush lass," Carson soothed and pulled her into a hug as she cried. "There's nae need for tha'"

"Yes there is!" she cried despondently. "I-I-I don't want to hurt anyone! Please, make it stop!"

"Ah cannae do tha', luv…"

"Then I'll go ask Aunt Elizabeth to lock me in the brig before the hunger comes."

"Nae, nae, no need for tha' yet!" he told her. "Ah cannae stop ye growing, but Ah think I can keep ye among us safely."

Mairghread furiously scrubbed at her tears with a fist. "How?"

Beckett sat on a stool and adopted his I'm-explaining-something-very-complicated-in-the-simplest-way-I-can voice.

"Before your father…" he made a motion with his hand indicating that there was something that was supposed to fill in the blank, but he didn't particularly want to say it. "He stumbled upon a solution o' sorts tae the problem o' feeding. He understood tha' the _real _problem wasn't the ability tae feed, because tha' was what allowed for healing powers, but the inability o' the body after puberty tae convert food into energy. Do ye understand?"

Mairghread nodded.

"Your father discovered tha' there is gene in the wraith DNA tha' allows food to be converted tae energy, but tha' it 'turns off' during puberty," Beckett grabbed a tray with blood sampling equipment and Mairghread held her arm out.

"Now," he said as he tied a tourniquet around her arm and swabbed the inside of her elbow with an alcohol swab, "When ye were here two weeks ago, Ah gave ye a small dose of the retrovirus your father developed to keep this gene 'on'. Ah'll just take a wee bit o' blood, see if it's done anythin' before Ah give ye the next dose."

He filled two small tubes with her dark blood. One, he sent to the earth-style lab for regular comparative analysis, while the other he ran through a Lantean diagnostic machine.

"Seems not tae have reacted badly—no antibodies have turned up," Beckett told her when the machine spat out its answer. "So, Ah'd like tae give ye the next dose; it'll take some time—about an hour."

"It's four thirty in the morning," Mairghread reminded him with a smile. "I have plenty of time."

"Aye," Beckett gave her a smile before fetching an IV of saline and a small vial of dark orange serum. "Lie down please."

Mairghread lay down on the infirmary bed (which was not nearly as comfortable as her own) and crossed her arms over her chest. A moment later she remembered that Dr. Beckett would need a vein and extended her arm. Carson took it with a smile, retying a tourniquet and tapping the back of her hand lightly.

"Last time, Ah gave ye a very small, dilute dose. This is much more potent—ye may feel a bit lightheaded today. Let me know if it bothers ye," he told her as he carefully found a suitable vein and inserted the IV deftly. He hung the saline on the hook attached to the bed and injected the entire umber vial into the bag, where its sticky tendrils floated through the salty liquid in some bizarre, watery version of modern dance. Carson poked, prodded and otherwise sloshed solvent and solute until they had joined in non-holy solvency.

Mairghread watched as the tangerine fluid flowed down the clear plastic tubing. It felt cool as it entered her blood. Her eyes began to drift closed—it was very early, and her terror-filled awakening had tired her. The mattress beneath her was soft-ish, the blanket which Uncle Carson spread over her was warm, the infirmary immersed in the quiet of the early morning. Drowsily she wondered what color it was, where the orange retrovirus met her deep indigo blood. What happened if you mixed orange and purple Kool-Aid?

TBC

NEXT: What Dreams May Come

Pretty Please, click on the little purple button!!!


	26. What Dreams May Come

**What Dreams May Come**

* * *

She was asleep. She _knew_ she was asleep. She clearly remembered drifting off as gravity pumped orange juice into her veins.

So it was a bit surprising to find herself standing in the middle of what looked like a foggy balcony.

She was even more shocked when she realized that the wraith standing several feet in front of her was her _athair_.

It took her a moment to recognize him; he was much changed from the father of her memory. She remembered him as tall, pale azure skin, hair silvered, though flecked somewhat still with black. She remembered broad shoulders that didn't need any winged coats to make him large and intimidating. She remembered clipped nails on strong, callused hands. She remembered clear, bright eyes, always with a small smile in them, even when he was sad.

The years had not been kind, she thought. He seemed to have shrunken, even allowing for the fact that she herself was now bigger. His clothes were slightly too large for him; his shoulders did not fill the coat and his shirt sagged around his chest. His skin was yellowed, betraying his extreme age. His hands seemed…frail, covered by paper thin skin that showed dark veins and ending long, cracked nails. His eyes were dulled and sorrow-filled; dark shadows under and around made his eyes appear sunken, dead.

"I am very proud of you Mairghread," he told her. "I am sure your mother is as well."

She was growing be a very lovely child, he thought. When she was older, she would be as beautiful as her mother was. Already her skin was a clear, pale blue. Her large eyes were like Seàrlaid's—green rimmed and flecked with gold. She was small now, yes, but she still had much growing to do.

"Athair?" she whispered, afraid somehow that if she spoke, she would wake and he would disappear.

"Yes, child," he replied. "I am here."

"Athair!" she cried and tried to run to embrace him, but the dark mist that surrounded them seemed to hold her back—it was like trying to walk through Jello. Not the Jello that one was actually inclined to eat—rather the kind of Jello that had been cubed and sitting in the fridge for too long and so now resembled colorful, clear cubes of caulking compound.

"I am sorry Mairghread, but we cannot touch, and time is short." Too short, he thought ruefully. He wanted so much to stay and speak with her, to hear what she had learned, the everyday minutiae that painted a better picture of life than the large events. "Do you remember what I left you of the Spirits' laws?"

She nodded. "Yes."

"What do they say concerning the hunger?"

"The hunger must not control us," she recited. "It may only be satisfied by willing gifts, never stolen, for to steal life is to negate it—life is a gift of the Ancient One, and can only be re-given as a means of life for others or returned to the Ancient One in death."

Cullough smiled. "Very good. If the serum works as I have hoped it will, you will never feel the hunger and fear its satisfaction."

"How…?"

"You probably do not remember, but I asked you to reach out to me when you were given it. I am sorry I have not spoken to you before, but I did not wish to risk hurting you. I knew, however, that if you were given the serum, you must be old enough that it would not harm you to speak with me," he explained. "Oh Mairghread, you are growing up into such a lovely young female. You are beginning to look just like your mother."

"Really?" Mairghread's face lit up. As much as she loved her human family, she still longed for her father and missed her mother and brothers and sisters.

"Yes, really," Cullough replied. "I am sorry Mairghread, but I must go now. I promise, I will never leave you for so long again."

"Athair! No, please! Athair!"

"Mairghread!"

She woke with a jolt to see a concerned Carson looking down at her.

"Are ye alright lass?" he asked worriedly. "Ah didnae think a side effect would be bad dreams."

"No no," she assured him as she tried to sit up and a wave of dizziness washed through her while Carson steadied her with a hand on her back. "Not bad. I dreamed—I mean, I spoke with my father. My blood father," she clarified.

"Oh," said Beckett. He didn't really have a response for that.

"Is…?" Mairghread pointed to the nearly empty IV bag.

"Aye," Beckett squeezed the last bit of orange fluid out of the bag and flushed it with a little more saline. "How're ye feeling?"

The floor was trying to walk off without her. Her head was attempting an out-of-body experience.

"Dizzy."

"Aye, Ah was afraid o' tha'," Carson said as he slipped out the IV line and slapped on a Band-Aid in one smooth motion. "Ah could gi'e ye some Antivert, but Ah'm afraid all tha' it really does is put ye tae sleep for a few hours."

Mairghread shook her head until she realized that it was a _really_ bad idea. "No thanks. I think I can manage. And I really need to finish the algebra problems Uncle Rodney gave me."

"Algebra? At ten?" Beckett shook his head. "Ah'll have tae speak with that man."

**TBC**

Next: Vertigo


	27. Vertigo

**Vertigo**

* * *

This chapter is dedicated to everyone who, like me, has suffered from any form of dizziness, vertigo or migraines. 

Dialogue in // implies it is translated Czech

* * *

Mairghread picked her way carefully out of the infirmary. It had taken some doing, convincing Uncle Carson that she was all right to go back to her apartments by herself (with, of course, her omnipresent guard), but at long last she had succeeded with the promise that she would climb back into bed and do her algebra and Greek exercises there. 

She hoped he hadn't noticed how she had clung to solid furniture and walls, zigzagging across the infirmary in order to reach the door without falling over and without any help.

Now in the halls, she stayed close to the wall, her right hand brushing it lightly—it was the only way she could be sure she was roughly perpendicular to the floor.

At least, it started out that way. The farther she went the more she held up the wall. Or the wall was holding up her. Whichever way you chose to look at it.

"Mary?" a voice close to her ear startled her. It was Sgt. Kafka, assigned to her morning guard. "Are you okay?"

"I'm fine," she replied with the standard Atlantis answer.

"Pardon, but not so," he told her. "Wall does not need holding up. You are greener…than usual."

"Just a bit lightheaded," she lied. To say she was lightheaded was like saying a tsunami was a wavelet.

"Allow me to help, yes?" he asked.

She remembered in time _not_ to shake her head. "/No, thank you. I just need to get to a transporter./"

"/You're at one/," he pointed out as the doors opened at his partner, Sgt. Kierkegaard's thought.

"Oh," she stepped gingerly inside with her escort, who told the transporter to take them nearest to Mairghread's quarters.

As it turned out, this was one of those ideas that has you going 'why the hell did I do this? And why didn't someone bloody well tell me it was an idiotic idea?'

As soon as the transporter began to move, Mairghread felt her stomach trying to make a bid for freedom, and her eyes decided that they no longer liked working together, and so each went their own way.

"Stop!"

Kierkegaard ordered the lift to stop and it opened into the mess hall. Mairghread stumbled out and landed sprawling at the feet of McKay and Sheppard when the floor decided it would prefer to be 60 degrees to the surface of the planet.

"Geez!" shouted McKay, stepping back from the wraithling kneeling on the floor and turning a strikingly similar color to a ripe kiwi.

"Mairghread? Are you okay?" inquired Sheppard as he tried to help her up, but she was perfectly content, nay, _preferred_ to stay on the floor.

"Dr. Beckett give her retrovirus, make her…" at a loss for the correct word, Kafka wobbled dramatically to make his point.

"Just a little lightheaded," she gasped from her position of hugging the floor.

"That would be why you're clinging to the floor for dear life?" asked Sheppard with a smile as he pulled her into a sitting position.

Another _bad_ idea, she thought with more than a little annoyance as not only did the floor dance beneath her but now there was a small contingent of knife-wielding maniacs in her head stabbing at her eyes and temples.

"Mary?" boomed John's voice in her ear, which invited a contingent of miners to the party in her head. She held her head in her hands and tried to hide away from the noise and motion and light.

"Beckett? I've got Mairghread here—looks like whatever you gave her is givin' her a migraine and jelly legs."

McKay gave him his prime sarcastic look. "Ya think?!"

And so she found herself back in the infirmary, clamping a pillow over her eyes and ears while Beckett explained to Ronon and Teyla what was going on.

"It appears one o' the nastier side effects of this retrovirus is migraine headaches in addition tae the usual lightheadedness," he was explaining.

Ronon continued to stare at him. Why did these earthling feel the need to constantly break up what they were saying?

"She'll be uncomfortable faer a few hours," Carson sighed. "And will probably have the same reaction for each of the 6 doses."

Ronon and Teyla looked over at their daughter. 'Uncomfortable' was probably a massive understatement, if Mairghread's white knuckles were any indication.

Mairghread shuddered inwardly. Six? Six?! Six of these headaches and vertigo attacks? Aie! Please no! Would someone _please_ evict the riotous party in her head and post "Do Not Enter—Authorized Personnel Only" signs every 5 feet? The maniacs she could _almost_ deal with. The miners were trying the outermost limits of her patience and endurance. But when drummers and bad piccolo players had arrived, that was it!

She wanted to weep at the merest prospect.

**TBC**

Next: Well, Did It Work?!


	28. Well, Did It Work?

**Well, did it work?!**

* * *

Disclaimer: I do not own Atlantis. I do not own Sheppard et al. I wish I did. I do own this plot, Mairghread and associated family members. No profit was made from this.

* * *

It was a very long two weeks later. Mairghread had spent most of her time in a modified broom closet just off the infirmary. All the cleaning supplies had been removed, and spare mattresses temporarily attached to the walls to provide a degree of soundproofing. Another pair of mattresses covered the floor and pillows from who-knows-where were thrown in for comfort and good measure. The only light source was a darkly shaded 15 watt bulb, just enough light for her to orient herself and find things.

She didn't remember a whole lot of the past weeks—they were largely lost amid pain and pain-killer drugged sleep. A part of her regretted it; she had lost her 'tenth year' of life to a series of migraines and vertigo attacks. She had woken up this afternoon to find that her breasts had grown from apricots to small peaches.

She hadn't discovered it this morning because before she could become terribly coherent as the painkillers wore off, Dr. Beckett had given her a sedative so he could run a couple hours worth of scans.

So, here she was. Lying groggily in a bed in the infirmary, painkillers still being pumped into her arm because the maniacs and the miners had refused to leave with everyone else. At least she wasn't quite so sensitive to light and noise anymore.

Key word being 'quite'.

When Rodney burst into the infirmary, attached at the hip to his tablet, late to the 'meeting' and shouted "Well, did it work?" Mairghread was very tempted to use language borrowed from Carson and shout at McKay, 'Will you shut it, you bloody idiot!'

Or course, she didn't and simply continued to count the dents in the ceiling. She wondered how they got there. Hundreds of years of patients becoming irrationally violent? Or purposeful design so that even if violent patients _did_ throw something and make a dent, no one would notice?

"Fer God's sake, McKay, shutit, ye bloody idjeet!" Carson hissed. It had been two of those weeks. The kind of week were treatment for the good of a patient meant putting them through hell. Were he had to watch people he cared about suffer. Not only Mairghread, but all the scientists and marines that routinely came shuffling, limping, screaming or deathly still into his infirmary, some only to leave in body bags, no matter what he did.

"Come on Carson, you've kept us waiting while you did your little voodoo rituals!" Rodney exclaimed. "Did your so-called-science work or not?"

"Rodney, please keep your voice low," broke in Weir. "Dr. Beckett says that Mairghread may still be sensitive to loud noises."

"Loud nois—"

"Rodney, do like the Doc said and shut up!" Sheppard ordered him. "Or I'm sure Ronon will be very tempted to carry out his perpetual threat and shoot you!"

When McKay opened and shut his mouth a few times but said no more, Teyla cast Sheppard a grateful glance and Ronon's hand fell away from his holster. They had just gotten back from MD4-058, aka the Game planet, and he hadn't had time to remove it before Weir sent them all down to the infirmary for the scanner results.

"Well Doc?" asked Ronon. Why did these people have to draw everything out?

"It seems tae have worked. Every cell in her body is registering as having been altered by the retrovirus," Beckett confirmed.

"Wait wait wait. How do you know that? I mean, how did you tell the difference between a virus affected cell and one that simply hadn't had that gene turned off yet?" demanded Rodney. Beckett gave him a withering glare.

"We included a mute genetic tag in the retrovirus. It doesn't do anything except differentiate between affected and not affect cells," the geneticist explained to the physicist.

"Oh."

"So…?" pushed John, clearly waiting for the bottom line.

"She will be capable of feeding and healing, but will have no need for the former."

"Ya hear that Mary?" Sheppard clapped her on the shoulder in congratulations. "You're as good as human."

"Better, really," pointed out Rodney. "I mean, she has unlimited healing abilities for herself and others, no set lifespan and telepathic abilities beyond even the average wraith!"

"Dr. Beckett, may we take Mairghread back to her room now?" asked Teyla. "I am certain she would be more comfortable in her own bed."

"Of course. Let me just…" he swiftly removed the IV and placed yet another band-aid on the back of the girl's wrist, which was covered in bruises from the IV's.

Ronon carried his little girl back to their apartment and helped Teyla settle her in bed. They had to be careful because the vertigo was being stubborn, but they were assured by the Scotsman that it would dissipate in a few days.

"Mama?" called Mairghread softly, afraid of the vibrations her own voice sent through her head.

Teyla sat cautiously on the edge of the bed. "Yes Mairghread?"

"Does this mean I get to stay?" She was aware, perhaps more painfully aware than even the adults, what would need to happen if the retrovirus failed.

"Yes, it does. Now," said Teyla, as she tucked her daughter in more firmly. "Get some sleep."

"Well, it's _something_ to be happy about this week," sighed Sheppard as they sat in the mess eating a late lunch/high tea/early dinner.

"Mmm. The question is, what will Woolsey's little underling say when they show up?" put forth McKay.

"Hopefully, not much," ground out Sheppard, annoyed that Rodney always had to ruin the current smoothness of the road by pointing out that the bridge was out a half mile ahead and the ford across the river meant a mile detour.

"Let's deal with that problem when we come to it, hmm?" suggested Weir, effectively cutting off all conversation on the subject. "More pressing is the question of what exactly this is on my plate" she said poking at the grey-brown fried and/or boiled quasi-meat thing on her plate.

"Is better not ask," offered Radek as he walked by with his tray, bearing still the suspicious pseudo foodstuff. "Is best not eat. I am thinking is leftover from hydro-quantum energy experiment of Dr. Huang."

TBC

Next: Trials of Womanhood


	29. Trials of Womanhood, Part 1

**Trials of Womanhood Part 1  
**

* * *

The following week was blissfully free of tragedy, disaster and other irritants. Missions were pleasantly free of nasty surprises. Nothing blew up in the labs. Caldwell was nowhere near the galaxy.

They knew it couldn't last.

But it still seemed a cruel trick of fate/luck/karma to Mairghread when she woke up in the middle of the night early Tuesday.

Her belly and thighs were on fire. Her lower back felt like someone had fused the bone together and had thoughtfully added several spikes which were digging in to her skin and innards. Her whole body tingled and burned like she had been struck by lightning, or one of Rodney's unsuccessful experiments. She was hot and cold, shivering and sweating, nauseous and hungry.

Damn!

She scrambled out of bed and ran to the nearest place she could think of to lock herself into—the bathroom.

Mairghread punched the lock 'on' and then smashed the mechanism with the Lantean soap dish (it was a topic of great discussion why, if the Ancients were so spiritual and 'get me out of this physical form', they found expensive marble and artificial diamond soap dishes to be a 'bare necessity'). For good measure, she jammed anything movable against the door before curling up in the nook between the sink and two walls.

It hadn't worked. The hunger had come. She hadn't thought it would be this bad at first.

An invisible hand punched her low in her gut and she moaned softly. Looking down and opening her eyes, she was horrified to discover a pool of her own dark blood forming beneath her.

"Damn damn, blast and bloody hell!" she screamed. Why? Why were the Spirits letting this happen? The hunger was bad enough. Did her body have to do this? Force the point? Bleed until she had to choose between death and damnation?!

In their rooms, Teyla and Ronon heard their daughter scream. Screaming on Atlantis rarely meant anything as mundane as a nightmare.

They both rushed into her room, only to find her bed empty and the sounds of someone moaning in the bathroom.

Now, living in Atlantis for more than a few months will make the most easy-going person slightly paranoid and over-reactive to screaming, empty beds at 1 in the morning and moaning in the next room.

Neither Ronon or Teyla were terribly easy-going before they came.

They tried opening the door, but it was locked. Which meant calling someone to override.

Teyla activated her earpiece.

"Teyla to Control Room."

"Control Room. Haruki here."

"I need you to override the lock on Mairghread's bathroom please. We believe she is injured."

"Of course."

There was a pause as Haruki tried to override the lock, which should have been a simple operation.

"I am sorry, Ms. Emmagen, but I can't. The lock is not functioning."

"What do you mean you can't override it?" McKay's voice broke in over the comm. "Geez, what we pay you for if you can't override a bathroom lock?!"

"Rodney, perhaps you could help?" asked Teyla in the way she had that really said 'McKay, get down here or I will get my sticks and _make_ you come down here'.

"Teyla? Ronon? What's up?" Sheppard interrupted.

"Sheppard? What are you doing up?" McKay demanded.

"What are _you_ doing up?" countered John. "Did you guys put a call into Beckett yet?"

"No," growled Ronon as he attempted to stare the door into opening. He knew from experience that there was no good way to force the door without doing significant damage to the small room and its occupant beyond.

"Alright, I'll grab him on my way down. Sheppard out."

And thus it came to pass that everyone was standing in Mairghread's bedroom as 1:15 in the morning while Rodney worked to fix the busted mechanism enough to Sheppard to override.

Mairghread could hear them. She needed them to leave her alone—she was dangerous.

"Go away!" she screamed at them, trying to sound dangerous but only managing pitiful and bad-tempered.

"Mairghread, what is wrong?" Teyla spoke loudly through the door.

"Got it!" exclaimed Rodney as the crystals lit up and the door slide back to reveal the small pile of junk across the door way, which was easily pushed aside by Ronon.

"No!" she shouted as she tried to hide deeper into the corner. "Go away! I don't want to hurt you!"

Beckett knelt down in front of her, blocked from actually getting her, because the space between the sink and the wall was too small.

He noted with concern the puddle of blood seeping out from underneath her and how her hands, nightgown and legs were covered with blood. Sheppard looked over the doctor's shoulder, said "oh" and went to stand by the door with Rodney.

"Now why would ye hurt us?" asked Carson softly to the terrified girl.

"PMS," muttered Sheppard before everyone in the room shot him a glare.

"It didn't work!" she sobbed.

"What didn't?"

"The retrovirus! See!" she pointed to the blood. "It hurts so much! I don't want to feed!"

"Lass, the retrovirus worked fine. This is just your menarche," Beckett tried to reassure her. "It's perfectly normal for a girl your age and development."

She gave him a blank stare. "What?"

Teyla knelt down beside the doctor and tried to explain. "I believe what Dr. Beckett is saying is that you are having your monthly bleeding."

The light dawned. How could she have been so stupid?

"Um Doc?" muttered Sheppard to the Scotsman. "Didn't you explain the birds and the bees to her?"

"Ah dinnae think it was necessary!" Beckett muttered back, somewhat flustered. "She seemed tae know everythin' tha' was happenin' tae her!"

"I do," she broke in. They kept forgetting about her exceptional wraith hearing. "I panicked."

"That is understandable," Teyla told her soothingly. "Now," she said, taking charge once again and turning to the men. "If you would not mind leaving us…?"

They did not need to be told twice.

"It hurts," Mairghread whimpered. Just because she understood, didn't make it any less painful.

"I know," Teyla began to fill the tub with warm water. "I will return with some herbs to help ease the pain. Can you get in by yourself?"

"Yes!" cried Mairghread indignantly as she got up, blood running down her legs in indigo riverlets. "I'm not a little girl anymore!"

The Athosian smiled. "How true."

TBC

Next: Trials of Womanhood Part 2


	30. Trials of Womanhood Part 2

Trials of Womanhood, part 2

* * *

A/N: I'm sorry I haven't updated and I'm really sorry this is so short. I promise, more, longer chapters soon!

* * *

The miners were back. They had set up base camp in her head, and had invited some clumsy knitters to live in her ears, where they made her ears feel fuzzy with their yarn and repeatedly stabbed her with their knitting needles.

A contingent of miners had been sent to excavate her belly and her back, and they had brought along their welder friends.

Mairghread hated those miners.

Which was why she was swimming in one of Atlantis' artificial tide pools at midnight, with the mortified Sgts. Kafka and Kierkegaard furiously studying the floor, walls, stars, anywhere but the pool.

Maybe they would be less embarrassed if she were wearing something?

She really didn't understand the humans reticence to show their bodies—what could one possibly have that another didn't have or hadn't seen before?

She floated contentedly on her back, letting the ocean wash away the dark blood that flowed out of her body. For once, the Ancients had done something right in designing these pools.

"Mary, you are getting out soon, yes?" Kafka asked, sounding slightly desperate.

"No," she replied and dove under the water. Only when she was swimming did she get any relief. And right now, she was desperately craving relief. Two weeks. Two long, painful, bloody, messy weeks. Three years worth of 'periods' in fourteen days. And no end in sight.

She was thirteen or fourteen now. Her feeding slit had fully formed, but the hunger hadn't come. She simply had to eat more than a human her size, still a frustratingly small 4 foot, nine inches and scantily 90 pounds.

The bleeding would hopefully slow when she reached 18 or so, and actually become a cycle instead of a constant when she was 30 or so.

An eternity, as far as she was concerned.

xxxxxxxxxxxxxx

"Elizabeth, Woolsey's coming back," Sheppard announced as he bounced into her office.

Dr. Weir looked up from her mountains of paperwork. "Woolsey himself?"

"Yep. General O'Neill too."

"How are they both spending so much time away from earth?"

John shrugged. "Apparently, the IOA is split on who to believe, so they sent them both back."

"Hmm, kinda like 'return to sender'?" Rodney's voice clunked over the intercom.

"Rodney?" Elizabeth and John looked at each other with raised eyebrows.

"Well, _Colonel_, if you leave your com open—"

TBC

Next: The Return of the Woolsey


	31. The Return of the Woolsey

**The Return of the Woolsey**

* * *

Two weeks later, Mairghread and everyone around her had in all honesty given up trying to judge her age. It was, simply speaking, an exercise in futility. She was more or less fully grown for the time being. In the distant future, she could perhaps hope for some non-vertical growth, but for the moment, she was done.

Life had settled down far sooner than anyone had anticipated for her. She had shot up one night, stopping at five-and-one-half-feet and she had finally 'got some flesh on her bones' as Dr. Beckett put it. Her voice, while nowhere near the deep, rasping tone of previously encountered wraith females, was a throaty alto with a soft, cat-like purr behind it.

Truth to tell, she had grown into something of a beauty, if you could ignore her skin color and facial slits.

Which some of Atlantis' inhabitants could not. There had always been a few who had been uneasy around her. And there were those whose initial trepidation had faded in the glow of a six-year-old, but now had returned in the face of a fully-grown wraith. The fact that she had never hurt anyone, had fled and hidden and asked to be locked up anytime she thought herself a danger to others seemed to have little effect on their fear.

It would be far more difficult this time to convince Woolsey that she was not a serious threat. She knew this, musing it and turning the problem over in her mind as she helped the cooks to prepare lunch (she was in charge of the stew—she seemed to have 'the magic touch'. Whatever they were brought to cook with, she could turn into a not only edible, but tasty meal. The cooks were enjoying a much deserved and longed for break from insults and harassment).

The part of the population that feared her would bolster Woolsey's opinion that she was in fact dangerous, even if most of the people were too blinded to notice, and that fact that she was trusted almost everywhere and was more friendly with her guard than professional guarders and guard-ees are supposed to be would support his claim that she was a threat because she had free reign in the top-secret facility.

"Mary?"

A quiet voice in her ear made her jump, but she smiled when she saw it was Solomon, her friend who had taught her how to cook. He was not an official cook of Atlantis—he was, in fact, the head astrochemist, but the Sudanese man was a closet chef.

"What troubles you?" he asked as he tasted her latest creation—Alterian deer-thing and Athosian purple carrots, along with Satedan pink potatoes. "Needs salt."

"I know. I have to wait though, or the deer-thing-meat shrivels into jerky."

"Very good," he said, eyeing it and throwing in another handful of potatoes. "But you have not answered my question."

"I am worried for my parents," she told him. They had gone to visit some moon, but had missed their check in—she had heard from Chuck, who had let her know against Dr. Weir's orders.

"You know this is not uncommon," he reminded her, sensing something more. "Your heart is dark for some other reason."

She smiled and sighed heavily. How did he always know? "I am thinking about what will happen when Woolsey comes again. He is supposed to arrive any day now."

Solomon laid a comforting hand on her shoulder. "Do not worry. I am certain that it will all work out in the end."

She laughed humorlessly. "How can you be so sure?"

"' تَأَمَّلُوا الزَّنَابِقَ كَيْفَ تَنْمُو! فَهِيَ لاَ تَتْعَبُ وَلاَ تَغْزِلُ، وَلكِنِّي أَقُولُ لَكُمْ: حَتَّى سُلَيْمَانُ فِي قِمَّةِ مَجْدِهِ لَمْ يَكْتَسِ مَا يُعَادِلُ وَاحِدَةً مِنْهَا بَهَاءً؟'," he replied in his native tongue.

"Luke, 12:27," she responded automatically. "Where Jesus instructs his followers not to worry about where they will live or sleep or what they will wear or eat."

"Mm-hmm," Solomon tasted the stew again. "Still needs salt."

"I am not one of His followers, Solomon," Mairghread reminded him as she pulled a carton of the needed seasoning from the shelf.

"That's what you think," he told her cryptically. "Still, I am sure He will provide."

"I pray to the Spirits you are right, my friend. There," she had him taste the stew again. "Better?"

xxxxxxx

Ronon and Teyla and the rest of team Sheppard were, of course, home late that evening. No one ever got left behind, and as much 'bad luck' as SGA-1 got shoveled onto them 'someone up there' must surely like them, for though they came home bloodied, bruised and broken, they always made it home alive, always survived to fight again.

Teyla would spend the night in the infirmary, but Ronon, arm wrapped tightly and held in a sling, was allowed to return to his room—Beckett trusted Mairghread would let him know if anything seemed wrong.

Mairghread helped the huge man to settle comfortably on the sofa in the living room. She knew his exhaustion, though he hid it well. She could sense it, feel his pain and tiredness. But she knew equally his need to 'wind down' as John put it. He could not return to safety yet.

And so she let him be, leaving him in the dim light of summer dusk as it filtered through the large windows and she prepared a light meal for him.

It was a strange relationship, between Mairghread and Ronon. The wraith hunter, the man whose sole purpose in life seemed to be to kill as many of that hated race as possible, and the orphan of those he hated. It had been feared by some that as she grew, his affection and loyalty to her would shrink. But it was not so; if anything, their bond had grown deeper with each passing age. Father and daughter and friends, companions—they were all these. Father and daughter foremost, and joint-sharers of the grief known only by those whose entire family is gone. The only change that could be detected was that now, she was as protective of him as he of she.

Mairghread manually raised the lights slightly—the sun had set, leaving the room where Ronon sat in almost complete darkness.

"Dad?" she spoke softly as she sat down next to him—she could feel his headache, possibly from worry, possibly from oxygen-deprivation—and did not wish to aggravate it. "Some soup."

The Satedan took the proffered bowl in his left hand and drank the broth, meat and vegetables quickly. It reminded him of the soup his mother made for him as a child. Though he was not sick as often as his peers, he was not invincible. But his mother's soup never failed to make him feel better.

Seeing he was done, Mairghread stood and offered her father her hand. "Come on then, let's get you into bed. No fuss!" she warned him when he opened his mouth to protest. "Or I'll tell Carson."

Ronon grinned and grasped her arm firmly, letting her pull him up. Not that he couldn't have done it himself, mind you, but it had become habit, almost ritual to them since she had been tall enough to offer a little leverage.

She wrapped an arm around his waist, more for her own comfort than his—grown she may be, but it still terrified her, the thought of losing another father—as they made their way to Ronon's bedroom.

It was no longer so Spartan as was his custom before she came. Walls were now covered in the drawings of her childhood, flat surfaces with three-dimensional artwork and pictures of her and Teyla taken by one of the biologists whose hobby was photography. Mairghread had told him time and again that he no longer needed to keep them up now that she was grown, and he had agreed, but they stayed, memento-mori-s of her too-brief childhood.

In silence and with gentle hands, Mairghread helped her father into bed, arranging the pillows to support his head and shoulders and prevent him from rolling in his sleep.

"You can go to bed," he grumbled good naturedly. "I can take care of myself."

"Oh really?" retorted Mairghread with a smile. "If you can take care of yourself, why do you always come back hurt?"

"I do not!"

"Do!"

Reasonably assured that her father would _stay_ in bed for the rest of the night, Mairghread returned to her own room, which itself held lingering vestiges of childhood.

She changed into a pair of light sweatpants, so favoured among the earthlings for night attire, and a tank top before wrapping a blanket around her shoulders and settling in bed, planning on reading a bit before she officially went to bed. She realized a few minutes later that she had read the same paragraph who-knows-how-many times, and still had no idea what it was she was reading.

Resigning herself to sleep, she turned off the light and drifted into a light slumber.

A series of sharp pains struck her upper back, and a fierce ache in her right shoulder brought Mairghread back to wakefulness with a start. Dark thoughts and fears hovered at the edge of her mind as the ghosts of the pains lingered. She leapt out of bed and ran into Ronon's room as quickly as her feet would take her (which was very quick indeed—she was, after all, a wraith).

She really had hoped that Dr. Beckett had slipped a light, slow-acting sedative into the injection of pain meds he had given Ronon. Of all the people on Atlantis, or in two galaxies, for that matter, Mairghread was fairly certain that only she and Carson knew about the nightmares. Off world, Ronon hardly ever slept, and when he did, it was a light, watchful sleep, never deep enough for dreams of any sort. At home, he slept in his own room alone, and he never made enough noise even in the grips of the worst night-terrors to penetrate the thick Atlantean walls. Mairghread only knew because she knew _everyone_'s nightmares—she shared them. Among wraith families of old, the ones with the strongest 'psychic/telepathic/empathic' abilities bore the brunt of all nightmares (which usually meant the oldest took on the fears of the youngest). It was the same with her and her family on Atlantis.

Dr. Beckett knew because he just did—he was a doctor, he never slept when a patient was on his watch. He could see the subtle signs in the Satedan when he had a nightmare, though he told no one.

But apparently, he had forgotten, or not thought that the situation would set them off again, because Mairghread found Ronon moaning, tossing and mumbling, trapped by horrors past and regurgitated into more frightening forms.

She sat on the edge of the bed and passed her hand lightly over Ronon's face, sending him in a deeper sleep, beyond the reach of the nightmares.

But the phantom pain across her back and shoulder did not cease, which was decidedly odd. Usually, the pain was linked to the nightmare, and so disappeared with it. But it lingered.

Mairghread rolled Ronon over as gently and carefully as she could without waking him and without hurting his arm more. It was not a terribly difficult task—she could easily keep him asleep, and she was every bit as strong, if not stronger, than her adoptive father, for all she was a foot shorter and half his size. Eventually, she successfully got him to lie on his stomach, carefully arranging pillows to avoid unnecessary pressure on his shoulder or arm, and cautiously lifted his loose linen shirt to reveal his heavily bandaged shoulder and back.

She brought her hands to hover half-a-hair's breadth over Ronon's shoulders, and closed her eyes, letting her mind's-eye see for her and allowing her other senses to fill in more accurately what she needed to know.

Her ears hummed with the sound of rushing blood and ligaments and muscle straining and swelling, nerves buzzing with messages that were lost to a sleeping mind that had left its voice mail in charge, only the server was down, so the messages left were never really there.

She could smell him—leather and sweat, linen and the sandalwood soap he used, earth and open air.

Beneath her hands, old scar tissue rose in protest against the day's abuse, while muscle and tendon and joint bewailed their rough treatment.

In her minds-eye, a image painted by what her hands sensed, her own back felt and her 'sixth sense' saw reared before her and wrenched her heart as a metal door had wrenched Ronon's shoulder earlier.

Deep wounds, cruelly inflicted traced along his spine and shoulder; she shuddered because she knew how they came there.

She could heal them so easily—heal all his wounds so quickly, so painlessly. No more aching muscles, no more scar tissue that tore so easily, no more nightmares.

But she could not, not without him knowing, without asking…except…

What he could not see, chose to ignore, she could heal. Not completely, not now, but ease, yes she could do that. She needed to do this.

Mairghread took a steadying breath and slowly gathered her energies into her hands. She should have eaten a huge meal before trying this, not the light repast she had consumed hours before. Already her feet and legs grew cold as she stole from them whatever she could, shunting the energies to her fingertips, were they buzzed, itched and burned. And when she had scraped together all she could, she let the healing energies flow out of her hands, hovering nanometers above the tawny flesh, deep into the old wounds, healing, yes, healing the scars beneath the surface that no one saw, but caused him so much pain. Healing energies into his shoulder, mending ligaments enough so they would allow the rest of his shoulder to heal properly.

And when she was done, she was exhausted to the point of collapse. She should have been storing up energy for days before attempting something like this! But, she reminded herself, how was she to know this would happen? Certainly, there had been the sinking pit that formed in her stomach when they had gone, but that happened often, and she could never tell who the doom she sensed was for, whether some scientist in a lab or a team off world.

She should go back to her own room, she told herself as she ran her fingers through her hair. She should roll Ronon onto his back again and return to her room.

She did just manage to get Ronon onto his back again and arranged with pillows, but getting back to her room? Not happening, she realized when her legs buckled beneath two steps out. Nope. Not tonight. She pulled a spare quilt off the foot of the bed, just in her reach, and curled up catlike beside the bed on the floor. With luck, she would wake up restored enough to leave before Ronon awoke.

In the Control Room, a console beeped, alerting Atlantis to the arrival of the Daedalus on the outskirts of the sensors—Woolsey had returned.

TBC

Next: Trials and Tribualtions


	32. Trials and Tribulations

**Trials and Tribulations**

* * *

"Mairghread?" 

A soft voice in her ear pulled the young wraith back to reality from the unsettling dreams of everyone on base. Her vision was blurry, another reminder that she had drained herself severely last night. Blinking furiously and struggling to sit up, she brought the person in front of her into a fuzzy focus.

"Mum?" she mumbled as she clumsily pushed her hair out of her face. "What're you doing here?"

Teyla smiled sweetly as she crouched by Mairghread, her daughter grown to her size and age. "Dr. Beckett released me. He believes that the device had no ill effects on me. What are you doing here?"

Mairghread was silent. She was unsure of how to explain, since she didn't think that Teyla knew of the nightmares.

But the Athosian held her gaze calmly before glancing at the man still asleep in the bed.

"He had one of his nightmares?"

It was more of a statement, Mairghread realized with surprise.

"You knew about them?" she blurted out before she could stop herself. She thought only she and Carson knew.

Teyla gave her a sad, wise smile. "I, too, have eyes, Mairghread. Before you came, the wraith who had made Ronon a Runner captured him, and took him to Sateda," mother and daughter shared a look of sorrow, horror and hatred. "After we rescued him, I sat by him in the infirmary while he slept and the others took a break."

She needed to say no more.

"Will he sleep much longer?" she asked Mairghread, knowing innately that her daughter had helped Ronon sleep.

Mairghread stumbled slightly as she rose and went to sit on the edge of the bed again, letting her hand hover over her father's head for a moment.

"Another hour, at least."

Teyla tilted her head to the side, looking at Mairghread with the gaze that clearly said 'what did you do to yourself?'

Once again, Mairghread was silent. How could she possibly explain that she had partially healed Ronon while he slept?

But Teyla was patient. Nearly infinitely patient. And she had the boring-into-your-skull/soul look down to a science.

But Mairghread still could not find the words to express what she had done, so she showed her instead. Gently linking minds, she replayed for Teyla what had happened—the nightmare, the pain, the healing, her collapse.

In response, Teyla came and helped her to stand, supporting her slightly as she wobbled and threatened to fall over.

"Come, let's get you something to eat," she said quietly, guiding her out to the kitchen.

Mairghread sat at the kitchen table while Teyla set about making her breakfast of a nature that Teyla could not hurt with her lack of cooking skills. There was oatmeal the Mairghread had gotten ready the night before, so it only needed to be heated on low heat for a few minutes to bring it to rights, and fresh fruit and nuts.

It was somewhat difficult, thinking about what Mairghread had done. Teyla was not mad or upset at what she had done; it was simply hard to face that the baby she had held through long, sleepless nights and raised was now undeniably a fully grown wraith.

Mairghread ate mechanically, consuming as many kilocalories and nutrients as she could. She had a sense of foreboding about today. She couldn't be sure about it. She wasn't even sure if it was a good thing or a bad thing. She just knew that something of great consequence for Atlantis would be happening today.

xxxxxxx

One Richard Woolsey was not in a very good mood. Three weeks traveling on the Daedelus, with a crew that clearly disliked him and with Gen. O'Neill as a traveling companion were enough to drive any mild mannered bureaucrat to insanity.

And so he had no compunctions about beaming down to Atlantis at local time 7 am and demanding that everyone involved with 'the wraith' meet with him in 20 minutes in the conference room, regardless of any previously made plans (like other, previously scheduled meetings or sleeping).

"I have made no secret of the fact that I consider this to a disastrous social experiment of the worst kind," he began when Dr. Weir, Sheppard and McKay had assembled. "And unless I see something very striking here, I am going to recommend that the wraith be exterminated before it can do serious damage to the security of this program."

"Woolsey," growled O'Neill. "What did I tell you about your opinion?"

"No, General O'Neill, Mr. Woolsey is perfectly justified in his fears, no matter how unfounded in this case," said Mairghread as she swept into the room with perfect grace.

Wow, thought Sheppard. She's laying it on thick. Maximum effect ahoy.

Her tight, accentuating bodice, modeled expertly after Teyla's, and long, floor-sweeping skirt were of a palest rosy pink with primrose yellow embroidery (hand-made by its wearer) and set off her curves to perfection while making her appear the antithesis to the gothic wraith of nightmare and memory. Lacy fingerless gloves hid her patriarchal tattoo and her hair was swept back while hiding her matriarchal one, both sure to antagonize the judgemental advisor.

She sat calmly across the table from Woolsey, her posture perfect but relaxed, her smile sweet and innocent, her gaze intense without being aggressive. Sheppard wondered vaguely whether she had that look from her biological parents, or whether she had learned it from Teyla.

"Although I am personally against exterminating me," she continued affably, "I do understand your concern. I believe, however, that I have a partial solution to your problem that can lay your mind to rest somewhat."

Woolsey, who had come in with his metaphorical guns blazing, now stared, mouth opening and closing like a fish out of water at her. Her blitzkrieg tactic had thrown him completely off balance and while he seemed to know that he had lost control of the meeting, he was unsure how to get it back.

"Two weeks ago, I had Dr. Beckett implant a small device in my chest that would give a shock sufficient to stun me for a minimum of ten minutes when my guards or the personnel in the control room push the button on the remote control. At the first sign of my…causing trouble, they can use this to 'stop me in my tracks'," she continued, above the shocked gasps and glares of the persons around the table.

"Mairghread, you didn't tell me you did this," Dr. Weir stated in her dangerous voice.

"I know. I did not because I knew you would never approve. But do not blame Dr. Beckett or Dr. McKay," she told the leader. "Dr. McKay and I developed it for use on future prisoner wraith, and I more or less forced Dr. Beckett to implant it. I told him I would do it myself otherwise."

She turned again to gaze calmly at Woolsey. "Would you like a demonstration of its effectiveness?"

"Whoa whoa whoa!" exploded McKay. "You have _no_ idea what that could do to you! It was designed for a huge male!"

"Females are the stronger sex among the wraith, Rodney," Mairghread reminded him. "And I am fully aware of what it could do to me. It will be unpleasant, but there should be no permanent damage."

"Now, see, I don't like that!" exclaimed O'Neill. "_Should_?! _Permanent?!_ Are you out of your mind? And where is this doctor that put it in you?!"

"Grandpa," soothed Mairghread, hoping the term of endearment and familiarity would serve to calm the irate general. "It was my decision, and mine alone. Sergeant Johnson?"

The hapless guard looked up guiltily. He just knew this was going to be like shooting a friend in the face, only more drawn out.

Mairghread gave him a look designed to allay his fears. "If you would."

Dr. Weir stood up, saying, "Wait, I don't—"

But Johnson had already pushed the button. Mairghread when rigid in her chair, arching her back as electricity crackled over her skin in a frightening display.

When the sparks ceased to fly a few seconds later, she fell off her chair and lay convulsing on the floor.

O'Neill and Sheppard leapt into action, rolling her on her side and checking to make sure she was breathing while Rodney called Beckett.

"Beckett?! Get down here! Mairghread's having a seizure! How the hell should I know?! Just get down here! Yes, of course it's that thing! No, she told them to! No, I'm not being sarcastic! Get your sheep-shearer's butt down here!"

A string of explitives broken up by barked orders pounded through the commlink, and fortunately Woolsey, who was staring at the chaos with a mixed look of horror, satisfaction and I-just-did-something-incredibly-stupid on his face, heard every word, having been given an earpiece when he arrived.

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

"She'll be alright," Carson assured them all a half-hour later in the infirmary. "She's resting now, I'll probably release her later today, if all goes well."

"Rodney?" Mairghread's croaking voice grated from the bed. "Was our ploy a success?"

"Ploy?!" shouted O'Neill and Weir in unison as they all spun around to look at her. Woolsey was conspicuous in his absence, having been warned by Sheppard to stay away from the infirmary for a while—Beckett still needed to do the requisite physical, but he would be in no mood to be either gentle or lenient.

Mairghread smiled (they had been pleasantly surprised to discover that wraith teeth were not actually naturally pointy—they grew pointy with extreme age, and were often filed, according to Mairghread, in order to give the impression of age).

"Yes. It was all very well thought out. Though I admit that I did underestimate the level of pain, and had not planned on having a seizure. John, would you explain please?"

"Sure. Ya see," he explained to the flabbergasted leaders, "We figured Woolsey wasn't gonna like it so long as there was only a couple of marines between her and mayhem. So, we just hurried along a little side project of Rodney and Radek. Beckett implanted it a couple of weeks ago, so it didn't look too suspicious (and I ordered him, by the way, besides Mary's threat). Figured we'd give Woolsey a little demonstration, prove she was well in hand and take it out as soon as he was gone."

"I like it!" declared O'Neill. "Sneaky, effective, and scared the little weasel sh—"

"You took a big risk," Elizabeth broke in. "She could have been killed."

"Actually, if she hadnae tried tae heal Ronon last night, she probably wouldnae have had a seizure," Beckett stated matter-of-factly. Which of course resulted in everyone spinning around to stare at him.

Teyla, who had walked in to hear most of the conversation, stepped in to save the flustered Scotsman.

"She sense last night that Ronon's shoulder and his scars were very…painful for him. So she…healed him."

"Like…" Sheppard slammed his hand on his chest. Teyla shook her head.

"No," interrupted Mairghread. "Like this."

She reached out and lightly touched O'Neill's knee. He jumped back in shock as she fell back in her bed.

"What did you do?!" he shouted, looking at his knee like it had suddenly sprouted an oak tree.

"Test it," she gasped.

O'Neill gave her The Eyebrow, but none the less stomped the floor several times before beginning to jump a little.

"Hey! That's great!" he declared. "That thing's be givin' me grief for years!"

"I know," she smiled.

TBC

Next: All Quiet on the Atlantean Front


	33. All Quiet on the Atlantean Front

**All Quiet on the Atlantean Front**

* * *

Mairghread was spending the night in the infirmary, for reasons Dr. Beckett left unspecified (it was harder for a patient to argue when they hadn't a clue what they were arguing against). Whether it was because she had shown a slight heart arrhythmia right after the 'demonstration' or because he wanted to make sure that she didn't do anything stupid was anyone's guess.

She was sleeping peacefully in the infirmary bed, monitors silenced for the night, the lights low and the only sounds were the soft clunk of machinery in the other rooms and the squeak of the night staff's shoes.

Lt. Gotobed's shoes didn't make any noise at all as he slipped past nurses, cleaning crews and Mairghread's guard into the depths of the infirmary, to the curtained off area where the wraith slept. A serrated hunting knife was in his hand.

This farce had gone on long enough. Woolsey knew, and he was going to have her killed. But he was a bureaucrat—they took too long. Gotobed couldn't allow a paperpusher's delays to jeopardize his people. He would end it himself. He would put an end to it, and everyone would thank him for it.

He stood by her bed and sneered. She looked so innocent, the lying jezebel! Pretending like she was helping them, translating and building and cooking. Bull!

He pulled back the blanket to get a cleaner kill and plunged the knife into the left side of her chest, where he believed her heart to be.

Incredible pain tore Mairghread from sleep, but it was no dream, she realized with a horrified shock when she saw the knife handle protruding from her chest, a man's hand still holding it.

"You missed," she hissed at him. This was idiotic! she thought to herself. I'm conversing with my would-be murderer! But she had to, it was keeping her grounded. She was dying, and it was sheer will that was keeping her from draining the terrified man in front of her. She had to talk, no matter how ridiculous, until help arrived. "You forgot your basic wraith anatomy."

In response, Gotobed twisted the blade and yanked it out, causing her to shriek in pain. Her hand shot out and grabbed his wrist, the blood from the knife dripping onto her arm.

"My heart is on the other side, and a little lower," she rasped as blood began to fill her lung and darkness gathered on the edge of her sight. She heard footsteps approaching, panicked and hurried. "You should clean that blade. Wraith blood will make it corrode."

Sgts. Kafka and Kierkegaard skidded around the corner along with nurse Kathy and Dr. Biro, who had taken the night shift.

The infirmary burst into activity as Mairghread lost her hold on the living world. Someone took the frantic lieutenant from her hand as someone else pressed heavy bandages to her bleeding chest. Biro barked orders to get Carson and prep Operating Theatre 1, stat.

The next morning found Sheppard sitting in Dr. Weir's office with her, sharing an early breakfast.

"Dr. Beckett says she should heal fine, it'll just take a little longer 'cause she has to build up her strength first. They have her on a feeding tube at the moment, and kinda loopy on painkillers—she said she was feeling, uh, Hungry," he said, pronouncing 'hungry' in such a way as the capital could be heard.

"Mmm," replied Dr. Weir through her coffee. "And Lt. Gotobed?"

"Kate thinks he's suffering from a psychotic break—his whole team was killed in a wraith attack a few months back. We all thought he'd dealt with it but…"

"Well, at least one good thing has come of it," Elizabeth told him. "I just got this report from Woolsey."

John took it and read aloud, "Despite my initial misgivings and personal aversion to the wraith Mairghread Nic Seàrlaid agus Cullough, I must conclude that she is both a non-threat to the security of the Atlantis Expedition as an institution and its personnel and is an asset to the Expedition as a whole. Her knowledge has greatly advanced the research and security of the city and she has demonstrated many times her concern for the safety of its residents. The recent attack on her life, during which she showed remarkable calm, restraining without aggression her attacker and successfully overcoming her instinct for self-preservation by feeding, proves, without a doubt, that she is deserving of the trust of the Expedition and the IOA. It is therefore, my recommendation that she be relieved of her guard, unless necessary for her own safety and granted level 2 security clearance on the base. However, I continue to stress the need for 24 hour video surveillance throughout the whole of Atlantis, as unexpected situations with all personnel will no doubt continue to occur, and the need for continued oversight."

He looked up. "Do ya think the General put him up to it?"

Weir shook her head. "No, I don't think so. And I asked."

Sheppard tossed the report back onto her desk. "Well, that's the best bit of news we've heard from Woolsey in a long time."

xxxxx

"Great news Mary!" announced O'Neill as he bounced into the infirmary later that afternoon. "You've won over Woolsey."

She smiled tiredly. She was still in pain, and healing slowly. She was poking her jello non-commitedly. Knowing you have to eat, and actually being hungry were two different things.

"That is wonderful news, General," Teyla replied for her. "Col. Sheppard told us when he came to release her guards from duty."

"Oh, I thought he hadn't come by yet," Jack thumbed over his shoulder at the two marines lurking in the shadows. "What with the leathernecks still around."

"Sgt. Lukinov and Lt. Johnson asked to stay on guard until Lt. Gotobed was transferred to the brig in the Daedelus," Teyla explained.

"Ah," Jack shoved his hands in his pockets and rocked on his heels. "So, Mary, you up to a little trip? I cleared it with the doc already."

She didn't really feel much like moving, but she would be grateful to see some different décor. "Yes, thank you, Grandpa."

"Grandpa Jack, thank you very much," he told her with a smile as he pulled a wheelchair through the curtained barrier. "Let's see if we can't get you into this thing without setting any alarms off."

Nevertheless, Dr. Beckett appeared to help them connect her to a portable EKG and oxygen tank. He was about to call for one of the strong male nurses to lift Mairghread into the wheelchair, but O'Neill stopped him.

"It's been a while since I got to lift a beautiful young woman out of bed," he said with a grin.

Mairghread bit her lip to keep from whimpering when he picked her up. He was very gentle, smoothly sliding his arms under her knees and shoulders, lifting her and settling her in the wheelchair with minimal jarring, but it still made her broken ribs grind and moan with protest and she would have sworn she could have counted all her stitches, inside and out, just by the number of tiny screams in her chest.

Once she was settled, Carson carefully tucked a blanket over her lap and helped her wrap up in a light shawl from her room. Teyla pulled aside the curtain as Jack pushed her out of the cubical and out the door, into the hall, around the corner and onto a sunlit balcony where her family and friends were waiting.

"We thought that a coming-of-age-cum-welcome-officially-to-Atlantis celebration was in order," Jack told her quietly as she stared dumbfounded at the huge group.

Woolsey came up to her, looking rather sheepish. "I'm…sorry. I misjudged you…severely," he stumbled over his words.

Mairghread held up her hand to stop him. "It's alright. It's past. And this party is about the future. Think no more of it," she told him.

"But really—" he began again, but Mairghread cut him off.

"No more," she smiled at him beatifically. "But perhaps you would be good enough to get me some punch?"

Woolsey scuttled off and Ronon came up to her, the bandages gone but his arm still in the sling. Beckett had threatened him with unspeakable things unless he kept his arm in the sling until the end of the week. Even Ronon had learned not to cross the good doctor.

"Hey, how ya feeling?" he rumbled as he bent down to kiss the top of her head.

"Better," she replied. "How's the shoulder?"

"'S fine. Beckett's a mother hen."

She chuckled and then hissed. "Please don't make me laugh!"

Chairs appeared from apparently nowhere and Ronon sat down beside her while the others silently slipped away, figuring that father and daughter needed a moment by themselves.

Ronon slouched in the chair, resting his elbows on his splayed knees. "Mairghread—"

"Dad, I'm sorry," she interrupted. "I should have asked before I healed you, but you were asleep and there was so much pain—"

"Hey!" he cut her off, cupping her face with his good hand. "I wanted to thank you."

"Thank me?" She was confused. She thought she knew her adoptive father. A strong warrior, who lived by the code that you dealt with pain, didn't ask for help, only screamed when you were alone. She was certain that if and when he found out what she did, he would surely be angry.

Ronon smiled sadly. "You know, just because I've had to live with something—"

"Doesn't mean you like it or accept it," she finished for him. "I just thought, it was a badge of courage, a way of proving yourself, somehow."

"Old habits die hard." He shrugged one shoulder. "Don't ask for things, don't hope either."

"Never?"

They shared a knowing smile. "Well, sometimes."

Mairghread pursed her lips. "Dad, what about the visible scars? Are they the marks of a warrior?"

"I try not to let things I can't change bother me."

"But if they could change?" she led.

"I wouldn't ask."

"And if I were giving?"

He shrugged again. Mairghread reached forward for a hug, but he pushed her hands back.

"Uh-un. You heal first. Then we'll talk about it," he scolded her.

"Okay," she paused. "But can I still have a hug?"

Ronon grinned and embraced her one handedly, careful of her wound and growled.

"Always got a hug for my little girl."

TBC

Next: Lazy Summer Days

A/N: Please, please please review! It makes me so happy! And as a random tidbit for the curious, the term 'stat' is not an acronym, but an abbreviation of the latin 'statim', meaning 'immediately'.


	34. Lazy Summer Days

**Lazy Summer Days**

* * *

It was a beautiful sunset, Mairghread thought to herself. If only it weren't quite so warm and her chest didn't hurt quite so much. 

Dr. Beckett had removed the stitches that morning, just two days after the attack. He had seemed please with the way she was healing.

Her hand unconsciously went to rest over the bandages as she remembered what had confronted her in the mirror after the stitches were gone. The long, jagged wound, the smaller tears branching off, like a macabre imitation of frost, from when Gotobed had twisted the knife. The dozens of 'railroad tracks' from the stitches. Black congealed blood against pale blue skin, surrounded by the thin line of new white skin.

"Still hurts, huh?"

Mairghread looked up to see Dr. Keller standing a few feet away, as though she weren't sure if she were welcome.

"Mmm," she looked back out to sea before looking back at the young doctor. "Would you like to join me?"

"May I?" she asked, taking a step closer. "I'm not interrupting something?"

"Not at all," Mairghread assured her as the young woman sat beside her, leaning against the wall like she was. "I was just resting."

"Code word for thinking and dozing off?"

Mairghread studied her face for a moment. "Keller. Dr. Jennifer Keller, right?"

"Yeah," she said with surprise. "I didn't think you'd remember me."

"Chicken soup and chocolate milk, second day of physical therapy. Called Dr. Beckett when I woke up after the surgery," Mairghread smiled. "It was much nicer to wake up seeing you check my IV than Lt. Gotobed twisting a knife in my chest."

Jennifer winced. "Sorry to bring that up."

Mairghread shook her head. "It is all right." She tilted her head and gaze inquiringly at the doctor. "How did you find me?"

"You're the only one who still has to prop the balcony doors open," Keller reminded her. "Wanted to make sure you were okay. How's it feel this evening? You never really answered my question."

"It's f—" she stopped herself in time from giving the standard answer/lie. "It is still very sore."

"I'll bet," Jennifer sympathized while shifting around to sit in front of Mairghread. "How are you doing?"

"I think I just answered that question, Dr. Keller."

Dr. Keller laughed. "Please, call me Jennifer. And it's not the same question. The first one was a about a specific part of you; the second was directed at the general or whole of you."

Mairghread sighed heavily, resting her head against the wall and closed her eyes. She was tired; a deep, penetrating exhaustion that reached every fibre of her being had taken hold of her.

"I am…weary, Jennifer," she answered at last.

Keller studied her companion for a moment. "I can imagine. Which leads me to the question of, what are you doing out of the infirmary?"

Her eyes still closed, Mairghread smiled at the face she knew the doctor must be making. She was still dressed in pale blue scrubs and a borrowed, bulky sweater of Dr. Beckett's. Under normal circumstances, she would find the sweater in this weather suffocating. But her healing body wasn't wasting energy to keep her warm—it had more important things to do, like repairing her lung, ribs, and replacing her lost blood.

"I asked Dr. Beckett if I could walk down to the mess hall to stretch my legs and get something to eat," she explained. "Then I thought I'd head to my own room to rest in my own, more comfortable bed for a while, but…," she chuckled, "this is as far as I got before I felt too tired to go further. So I stopped here to rest a bit." She opened her eyes briefly. "I was going to go back. Eventually." She closed her eyes again.

"Let me call for a wheelchair and I'll take you back. You should have your bandages changed anyway," she reached to tap her comm.

"No." Mairghread opened her eyes and reached out her hand to stop the doctor. "Please, not yet. And I can walk," she protested.

Jennifer laughed and dug in her pocket for her compact mirror. "I doubt it," she told the wraith. "Take a look at yourself. The last time I saw someone so pale was in a ghost movie."

Mairghread took the proffered mirror, somewhat shocked at the face that stared back at her. She _was_ pale—er than usual, almost white, and it was exaggerated by the dark circles under her eyes.

"All right," she conceded, handing the compact back. "But, just wait a few minutes, please? I want to wait for the stars to come out. Please," she begged when the physician opened her mouth to protest. "It will only be a few more minutes."

"Okay." Jennifer scooted back to sit next to Mairghread, who had closed her eyes again and tilted her head back to rest on the wall.

"So, why did you really come out here?" Mairghread asked abruptly.

Jennifer smiled and imitated Mairghread by leaning against the wall with her head tilted back to catch the last golden rays of the sun. How did she always know?

"I thought you could use a friend."

Mairghread was somewhat startled by this. The thought had crossed her mind, that she would like someone to speak with as an equal, someone other than her adoptive family in whom to confide. However, she had assumed that it was an impossibility on Atlantis.

"Thank you," she said after a long pause. "I could."

They sat in companionable silence for a few more moments, Jennifer watching the beautiful, morphing colors of the sunset, Mairghread simply enjoying the sounds of the ocean and the breeze that played with her hair, before she spoke again.

"For a moment, I wanted to feed on him," she confessed softly. "I was afraid that if no one came soon, I wouldn't be able to resist any longer."

Jennifer leaned forward and looked at Mairghread. "I'm sure that you would have been strong enough."

"You are very kind," Mairghread voice was made deeper by the unshed tears. "But it is not true." She paused and wiped her eyes with the heel of her hand and laughed mirthlessly. "I don't even know why I'm telling you this."

"What are strangers for, if not to tell your secrets to?" countered Jennifer comfortingly.

This made Mairghread smile. "This is true, I suppose."

"Of course it is," affirmed Jennifer. "Although I'm sure no one would blame you. I know I would want to kill the man who had just stabbed me in the chest and by mere chance missed carving my heart like a thanksgiving turkey."

Mairghread snorted at the simile before sobering quickly. "No. But there is a great deal of difference between killing your attacker and feeding off him."

"If there is, surely feeding is the less morally reprehensible of the two," argued Dr. Keller, leaning forward and looking Mairghread in the face even though her eyes were still closed, tears seeping out between closed lids. "Suppose it had been me that Lt. Gotobed stabbed—you had to be taken back into surgery and I had lain down in your bed and he mistook me for you in the dark—and I grab a scalpel or other sharp instrument off the table and kill him out of self defense. No one would blame me—it was clearly self-defense, fight back, kill or be killed—but it would effectively gain me nothing."

"Except time and safety," Mairghread pointed out.

"True," allowed Jennifer, "But take your case. Same circumstances as me, Gotobed stabs you in the dark in the middle of the night. If you reach out and kill him by feeding on him, it's no less painful or quick than if I stab him in the throat, but it would give you a tangible benefit—you're saved from bleeding to death while the medical personnel arrive. It's still self-defense; it's only the means and end amount of good that's done that's different."

"Hmm." When Jennifer put it like that, it made logical sense. However, Mairghread couldn't help but feel that emotionally, there was still a huge gap between the two, particularly for the humans.

She opened her eyes, and was greeted by the soft light of the stars and a crescent moon. She found comfort in them, in the fact that somewhere, they were watching over her _athair_ as well. Some of them may even have known her _màthair_ and her siblings. The soft song they sang brought her hope, while their light brought healing.

Dr. Keller watched as Mairghread's eyes gradually fluttered shut, her head lilting forward as her hands slid off her knees into her lap. The poor girl, she probably should have been asleep hours ago.

Keller tapped her earpiece. "Dr. Beckett? I found her. Yes, the balcony about 300 feet south of the mess hall."

"_Is she alright?"_

"Yes, I think so. But could you send a gurney? She's fallen asleep, and I don't think I should wake her up."

"_Of course not!" _the Scottish doctor's ire at the mere thought was clear even through the crackle of the radio. "_One's on its way now."_

"You know," mused Jennifer when she and Beckett had successfully settled Mairghread into the infirmary for the night, "I just realized that she's been here only about 8 months?"

"Ah ken," Carson's Scottish burr was thicker for the late hour. "Sech a lot o' tradgedy fer a wee bairn wi' less than a year o' living under her baelt."

The End-ish

A/N: Is that a lame ending or what? Yes it is. But it is not really the end! Oh no. Go to my bio page and click on "Vengeance is Mine" for the first chapter of the next installation in this saga. The events of "Submersion" with a twist (of course!). Mairghread goes down with the others to view the drilling platform on Atlantis's ocean, but the Queen is not just another ancient wraith who fought the Ancients. When Mairghread has to face her past and her mother's murderer up close, will anyone be able to stop her taking her revenge?


End file.
